Psyched Out
by Bloodstained Comma
Summary: Sequel to Mellow Out,summary inside if you haven't read it. Alpha comes to Japan 4 years after leaving Wammys to help with the Kira case. When the Shinigami Akino returns after B's death, will it be a help in catching Kira or just a frustration to Alpha?
1. Standoff

_Here it is, the sequal to the not-so-popular-but-still-apparently-loved **Mellow Out**!_

_For those who haven't read **Mellow Out** and don't feel like doing so in order to read this story, I offer a summary of **Mellow Out** to you now:_

_The story followed the ever defiant smart ass of an OC, Alpha Epsilon, when she arrived at the Wammy's House at the age of 14. She had been in a street gang with her brother until her family was killed, then she was just in a street gang. The gang was caught, the courts showed pity on the 14 year old computer wiz, and shoved her in the genius farm. Here, she met a four year old Mello and fourteen year old L. Mello took to her immediately and looked up to her greatly, and learned from her to love chocolate and excessive profanites. Alpha, upon finding out that a murder she witnessed another member of her gang commit was the murder of Mello's parents, also took to the blond midgit and took him under her wing, vowing to herself to protect him, as she had been unable to save his parents. Do to her history, she is given a therapist, who gives her a journal to write down her thoughts and feelings in. She dubs it her psychodiary and later names it "Ant" (short for Marcus Antonius). She is tormented by B throughout her stay at Wammy's, and eventually discovers that he is the owner of a Death Note and is followed around by a Shinigami called Akino. She manages to steal the note from him and burry it next to a tree before she runs away at the age of 20 (she had stayed four extra years after L and Watari left to help take care of the orphanage and, in particular, Mello, who she still believed she owed her life to after what happened with his parents). She is caught running away by Mello, who despite his attempts cannot talk her into staying. She tells the ten year old chocolate fiend the truth about what happened to his parents (as he had been told they were killed in a car crash) before giving him the rosary her older brother had given her on his death bed, as well as her chocolate stash that she had left in her room, and leaving. In the two epilogues, L comes back to Wammy's to discover his only friend has left; and years later, Matt and Mello recieve letters from Alpha, explaining exactly what happened in the Kira case._

_All right, that's it in a nutshell. This one takes place durring the Kira case. Ant will make a comeback, as will Alpha obviously, and so will Akino. The first chapter gets right into the story, so here's my regular quick-sum, disclaimo, ext._

_**Disclaimo**: I don't own Death Note or any of it's characters and concepts._

_**Warnings**: Profanity, maybe? I'm not sure. I forgot and don't feel like reading over it again :P_

_**Quick-sum**: Had Watari called for backup? She honestly had no idea, as she hadn't been at Wammy's House in a few years. She officially left four years after L did, in 1999… or was it 2000? She wasn't sure, but she knew she had been twenty at the time. No less, it didn't matter. She was looking into a window that showed her the very hotel room L had been staying in undercover._

* * *

It was abnormally cold for such a clear night in Tokyo, Japan, even if it was the middle of the winter. The locals and tourists alike were seeking shelter indoors for the unusually frigid January of 2004. The phenomenon of "global warming" was miles away from everyone's minds, replaced with a mixed feeling of fear and reverence, if only in Japan. To many citizens in the country, the only reason for the air to grow so much colder was because of the atmosphere of fear and slowly growing familiarity with the strange happenings as of the late. Criminals and FBI agents were dropping dead of heart attacks left and right, like some sort of divine justice gone wrong. No one, however, wanted to oppose Kira. Even as his supporters began doubting him, thinking him to be a devil in angel's clothes, they reluctant pledged their allegiance to this god of theirs, the God of the New World, and accused those who chased him of sacrilege despite their own suspicions.

Some, though, had been strong enough in willpower to chase the demigod from the very beginning. There was the task force, consisting of only five Japanese police officers brave enough to hunt down the killer. Then, there was the elusive L, the world's greatest detective. He could have walked down the street in his plain white shirt and blue jeans with passersby being none the wiser of his true identity. There was his associate Watari, who had been the police's only contact with L up until New Year's Eve in 2003. The secretive detective, who was only in his early twenties and still with a mind sharper than anyone's that the task force could say they had ever come into contact with, had finally allowed these five officers to see his face to make cooperation in such a troublesome case at least a little easier. Still, though, L considered it a failure on his part. They were the first to ever see his face since he gained his worldwide recognition as such a great detective, completely breaking his near constant winning streak.

Sacrifices still needed to be made, so he wouldn't complain.

There still was one other hunting Kira. At the moment, the girl wasn't hunting Kira, per se. She was truly hunting L, her old childhood friend. Had Watari called for backup? She honestly had no idea, as she hadn't been at Wammy's House in a few years. She officially left four years after L did, in 1999… or was it 2000? She wasn't sure, but she knew she had been twenty at the time. No less, it didn't matter. She was looking into a window that showed her the very hotel room L had been staying in undercover. It had taken her a while to find it, but she had followed Watari to it and found out that "Ryuzaki" was staying in the hotel. As she had followed the Los Angeles BB Murders like a cheetah stalks its prey, she knew that Ryuzaki absolutely _had_ to be L. Now, she was looking right at him, though the police officers he was working with were absent, most likely headed home to see their families.

Alpha Epsilon dropped back down as quietly as possible onto the fire escape where she had set down her bag and allowed herself a small laugh. Oh, how the mighty had fallen. As it had been, the only people who could put L's face to his name, or his name to his face, were those that remembered him from The Wammy's House. Of course, she was one who remembered him, otherwise she wouldn't have been looking for him to help with the Kira case. He was obviously struggling if he had been willing to go as far as letting five people at the same time see his face, any of which could have been Kira and could have killed him, just to keep the cooperation of the police. The poor private detective wasn't so private anymore!

She picked up her bag and brushed a bit of dust off of it, then opened it and looked inside at the single notebook. "You'll be getting a few pages full soon, buddy," she said as though speaking to an old friend. Alpha made her way back down the fire escape, careful not to drop her bag in the parking lot of the Teito Hotel below her. She couldn't make any mistakes with that bag. With as much as she had written in that notebook, anyone to get a hold of it would have known where L was, what he was doing, who he was with, and all of her own theories on the Kira case. That would have proven disasterous, particularly if Kira had picked up the notebook.

Once at a safe distance from the ground, she dropped down and landed on her feet in a less than graceful manner, stumbled, and caught herself on a car with her hands. Her eyes widened when she looked at the car.

It was a police car. And there were two others parked by it. She backed away from them quickly – that meant that L's amigos in the Kira case were nearby.

"H – hey!"

And, turning, she saw two of them. These were Matsuda Tota and Aizawa Shuichi. She didn't have a good reputation with the police in the area with as much as she had been sneaking around since she got to Tokyo, as they obviously thought someone like her (with more holes in their face than Swiss cheese) had to be up to something bad. As she had just come down a fire escape on the hotel L was in and they were working with L himself, she had no doubt in what they were expecting.

"What were you doing up there!"

It was more of a command than a question, coming from the afro-clad Aizawa rather than the confused looking Matsuda. Alpha, thinking fast, decided to use the ever popular, "It's not a matter of what I was doing up there, it's a matter of what they're doing over there!" and pointing behind them.

The element of surprise worked, as they both looked in the other direction for long enough for Alpha to take off running in the opposite direction. Those two wouldn't believe her if she even attempted to talk to her, and they would definitely make sure to keep her away from L at all costs. She hid around the other side of the building as she listened to Aizawa talking, apparently on the phone – to Ryuzaki-san. That was good.

"Ryuzaki-san," he was saying, "Matsuda and I just spotted someone climbing down the fire escape. Uh, female, late teens to early twenties, probably European. She ran off around the other side of the building. Yeah." He then spoke to Matsuda: "Go see if she's still over there." Alpha knew she had a moment longer to listen before Matsuda would get there. "What should we do? Right, and if she doesn't? Sh – shoot? To disable, all right. Fine. R- really? All right, yeah, I guess. Okay, I'll inform them as soon as they get here, they should be coming around the corner in a second. All right."

She heard a small snapping sound, like a cell phone shutting, and she could hear footsteps growing nearer. She looked back and saw a chain link fence. At this, Alpha swore under her breath. She was one of the slowest climbers she knew, and they had just been given command by L to shoot her if she did anything to escape. It really couldn't be helped. It was foolish, she thought as she reached into a side pocket of her messenger bag, but necessary, as it was the only thing that might even possibly get her out of this predicament.

So as Matsuda rounded the corner, she drew her gun. They were illegal in Japan, which was why it surprised him enough that it took him a moment to reach for his own. Hers was a small pistol, smaller than the police's standard issue guns, but it would still pack enough of a punch. Even so, Alpha had absolutely no intentions of shooting. She just didn't want to be taken into custody. There were more important things for her to be doing than sitting in a dingy little jail cell.

It was obvious just by Matsuda's disposition that he was probably relatively new to the Japanese police force and not used to dealing with standoffs of this sort.

"Uh – d– drop your weapon!" he managed to get out. He reached in his pocket quickly, pulled out a billfold, and opened it up quickly to flash a police badge. "Police!"

"Can't do that, sorry," said Alpha, switching her language to Japanese with some effort. "I'm not enjoying this any more than you are, mate."

"Just drop the weapon and come quietly and there won't be anything to worry about!"

"I think it's you who needs to calm down," said Alpha with a sigh. "You couldn't hit the side of a barn at point blank range with as much as your hands are shaking. Why were you instructed to follow me anyway? For all you know someone broke into my room in the hotel and I was escaping out the fire escape and happened to land in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why did you automatically assume I was up to no good?"

"Uh –"

"Ah," she said, taking one hand off of the gun to poke at a piercing in her bottom lip. "It's all the metal, isn't it?" There were more footsteps at a running pace coming around the side of the building now, and Aizawa was next to point a gun at her. "Ah, nice of you to join the fun, I see you've brought a toy as well. Why am I being chased, now?"

"You are under suspicion of being Kira," said Aizawa. Even Matsuda looked surprised at this. "Drop your weapon. Even if you do shoot one of us, you'll be shot by the other."

"Unless I'm a really fast shot," said Alpha reasonably. "Why would you suspect me of being Kira?"

"That's classified. If you attempt to escape, you will be shot."

"Only if I turn my back. Otherwise, I just dodge."

"You –"

"Shh!"

Matsuda and Aizawa looked at each other for a moment in confusion before focusing on her again. Alpha, however, was listening to another phone conversation now. She could hear Yagami Soichiro talking to someone on the phone, most likely L. "Ryuzaki-san," his voice said, travelling around the corner. "The suspect appears to be armed and has started asking questions. What should we do? No, she hasn't tried to escape yet, and she isn't threatening to. She is at gunpoint right now – Matsuda and Aizawa. Yes." There was a long pause. "You want us to do what?"

Matsuda looked over at Yagami at this statement.

"Focus!" said Alpha, waving her gun.

"What?" said Matsuda, quickly looking back at his current situation.

"All right," said Yagami, almost resignedly. "Fine, we will. You're sure? … I'm not entirely sure, only Aizawa and Matsuda have seen – and leave Aizawa there? Right." Alpha heard Yagami give commands to Matsuda and Ukita Hirokazu to switch places. Matsuda seemed extremely relieved, but was at least smart enough not to turn his back until he got around the corner. Ukita, a rather short man with large ears, took his place. Alpha tuned out Aizawa and Ukita commanding her to drop her weapon to listen to Matsuda as he took over the phone conversation.

"Uh… right. Reddish hair, uh… loads of piercings. Three lip, one nose, one eyebrow, I think. Probably ears too, but her hair was covering – a little longer in the front and shorter in the back. Attitude…? Uh…"

"Sarcastic?" Alpha offered rather loudly.

"Yeah, sarcastic," she heard Matsuda say. "I guess so. Calm? Yeah. Only a messenger bag, that's what she got the gun out of. Don't know if there was, I didn't see inside it. Okay."

Yagami continued speaking with L at this. "Are you still – more than before, of course," said Yagami, sounding halfway between exasperated and confused. "Fine. I will."

There was a quiet snapping sound of a cell phone, and Yagami spoke out loud to Aizawa, Ukita, and Alpha as he approached the scene himself. "Put your weapons away, all three of you," he was saying.

"I'm not a police officer and I don't have to listen to you!" said Alpha loudly as he walked into view.

"You don't have to, no," said Yagami, "but I would recommend it. You apparently aren't to be prosecuted until you speak with L."

"Ah, goody," she said, putting her gun (which she hadn't even taken off of its safety setting) back into the side pocket of her messenger back. She then held out her wrists. "Shall I be restrained?"

"L doesn't seem to think that is necessary."

"But chief!" she heard Matsuda say, running over to the scene. "It's a federal offence to even point a gun at another person in Japan, what's L –"

"It also isn't legal to send spies to follow particular people and their families' around," said Yagami. "This is L we're talking about."

"Indeed it is," said Alpha, causing them all to look at her again. She crossed her arms. "What? You were referring to his hiring of FBI Agents from America to follow around the families of the police working on the Kira case, right? Everyone knows about that. Kira obviously did as well, considering what he did to them."

"Yes, obviously," said Yagami shortly. "Now come with us. Aizawa, Matsuda –"

"Chief, she could still be Kira," Matsuda said quietly.

"Matsuda, you'd be dead by now if I were Kira. So would Aizawa, Ukita, Yagami, _and_ Mogi, and the last twos' names weren't even mentioned. Now chill out."

"As I was saying, you two are in charge of making sure she doesn't attempt to escape," said Yagami.

Matsuda seemed apprehensive of the job he had been given, but he and Aizawa both knew they had to walk on either side of her to restrain her if she attempted to escape.

"I won't attempt to escape, I promise," said Alpha as she walked behind Yagami and Ukita, with the impossibly tall, Frankenstein monsteresque Mogi walking behind the entire group. "One, I'm boxed in," she continued as they entered the hotel lobby, "and two, I'm quite looking forward to popping in on L to say hello." She said this quietly so no one else in the lobby would hear. "I have absolutely no reason to want to escape. And I'm claustrophobic, so this arrangement of people taller than me that I can't see over top of surrounding me will only make me more apprehensive and verbally aggressive. I swear a lot when I'm angry. And I can practically hear you rolling your eyes, Yagami-san, please don't do that."

"You're not ever quiet, are you?" said Aizawa, sounding utterly annoyed.

"Not particularly. You'll only get more annoyed if you keep walking next to me, wouldn't you rather walk up front?"

"I would, but that wasn't my instruction," said Aizawa.

Alpha already didn't like _him_.

"What about you, Matsuda-san, doesn't standing next to a colleague seem to be a more appealing idea than walking next to a potential murder suspect?"

"I – I'm supposed to –"

"That's all right," she said. "You're freaked, I know. I would be too if I'd just found out that a possible Kira suspect knew my name and face. If it makes you feel any better at all, I've known who everyone was for a couple days now and you're all still alive."

"Yeah…."

"No? That's all right."

The walk to the hotel room seemed to take far longer than it should have. They took the stairs do to the number of them and Alpha complaining loudly about small confined spaces with lots of people (she honestly just didn't want to say that she was afraid of elevators). She hated stairs as well, but it seemed that this was the only way to get there if she was against taking the elevator. She decided to spend the rest of the walk in silence to save herself from gaining hatred from the investigation team. She was sure that if she talked to L, she might be working in fairly close proximities with them.

She felt a little rude, though. She still really hadn't introduced herself to them. She still didn't much like Aizawa, but the rest of them seemed all right, if only a little impatient. Matsuda wasn't. He was just scared out of his wits that he might drop dead of a heart attack within the next few minutes, that was obvious enough by the apprehensive looks she kept getting from the person walking to her right. Aizawa was rolling his eyes every time she opened her mouth to say something, which was beginning to get a little annoying. That was another part of the reason that Alpha had stopped talking.

Even she had to admit that she did have a tendency to talk a lot. That was probably do to how much thinking she did about completely strange things all the time and the fact that the filter between what she thought and how much of it came out of her mouth had diminished over time. She would have to be extremely careful when talking to L not to mention how she knew him or where she knew him from. That would be disasterous, as outsiders weren't allowed to know about the Wammy's House. That was a main rule of the orphanage, that no one was to know who had been there, when they had been there, or who those who had attended even were by name, hence their fake names. There was only one other orphan from that place that knew her real name, and he was currently locked up in Los Angeles, much to her great relief.

"Oh, we're here?" said Alpha, nearly walking into Yagami when he stopped in front of her at a door. "Didn't even notice, sorry about that."

Yagami knocked on the door and then opened it (apparently L had told him he would unlock it for when the suspect was brought up). The moment Alpha walked through the door and saw L, she couldn't resist the temptation. She pointed at L (who was, as always, eating a rather large slice of cake) and said, quite loudly ad exuberantly, "Llama!"

There was silence throughout the hotel suite.

* * *

_Poor Matsuda._

_I pick on him too much._

_Anyway._

_Review if you like, as I will most definitely appreciate it!_


	2. Cake and Apples

_FINALLY. Finished with Chapter 2. I'm sosososososoooooo sorry it took so long to get done. But I'll be continuing it now, I promise. Updates in general might come slow. More family issues than ever and it's driving me bonkers._

_Anyway, I figure I should reply to my fifteen commenters (which is more than I've ever gotten on a first chapter, I thank you all dearly :) )_

_Spar: I suppose I'll get over it after a while :P Anywho, FUMMINS!  
Uzura-chan: Then sorry I took so long on it O.O Thanks for the review, though :)  
Liah Cauthon: Muchos gracias  
InkedButterfly: Who wouldn't have? XD  
ActionFry: Glad it was amusing :) I will definitely try to update this faster now.  
HeeHeeHee01: Well, definitely more L in this chappy. And anyone who doesn't like Matsuda is just odd. He's so awesomely goofy. He's just too easy to pick on XD The gun scene was fun, though.  
15thBurningFiddle: O.O I do hope you haven't spontaneously combusted too bad while waiting. Sorry it took so long, but thanks for the review :D  
Michiyo-Bunnie: I had plans to continue it from the beginning. This is part 2 of the three part series, so there's plenty more to look forward to. Had to do one more after this, since Alpha and Mello won't be meeting up again in this particular story. They will in part 3, just not in Psyched Out.  
Tanya: Thank you :) And it's three lip piercings, one nose piercing, one eyebrow, and two or three in each ear.  
Twitch-Lawliet: Thanks! And yeah, but every good story needs its comic relief, ya know? And Death Note had Ryuk and Matsuda :D I love Matsuda, though, wouldn't pick on him so much if I didn't.  
Three Books in the Fire: Indeed he does XD My theory is that he brought it on himself by having that afro :P I mean, seriously, everyone knows he's just the Afro Samurai in disguise :D  
Reading Again: Thanks, and will be sure to continue.  
ellan54: Will continue. Aaah, I just can't help but pick on Matsuda XD I surely don't think I'm too overly cruel to him.  
Takun123: Thanks, glad you enjoyed Mellow Out. That's been one of my favorites to write so far. This one'll probably get there when I really start to get into it, I imagine.  
icanwalkonwater: Ah, muchos gracias. I do love writing more humorous Death Note fics - even ones I intend to be serious end up turning out funny just because my sense of humor sorta seeps through. Ah, but everyone has to pick on Matsuda - it would mean he was just completely unloved if we didn't :D And why not post up some of your stuff? I'd be sure to read it :) And you actually did spell guiltily right, haha XP_

_And introducing this splendiferous installment of **Psyched Out**, of the three-part series that I currently have no collective name for but will come up with one in time._

_Enjoyed this chapter. Why? Because I brought back a character from **Mellow Out** that I adored coming up with. He was really only barely introduced in **Mellow Out**, but he'll play a vital role in this story. In fact, I even added him to the OC's section on my profile. What's his name? You guessed it -- or you didn't, but you'll know now -- it is my original Shinigami, Akino!_

_Yes, I spaz a bit. Akino's my first original Shinigami. I'm rather fond of him._

_Anyway, all the regular stuff now._

_**Disclaimerbobber**: I own nothing of Death Note. I don't own Akino, either. People don't own Shinigami, as Shinigami can kill us whenever they please. However, Akino will not be happy if you steal him from this story. He is quite content there. Alpha might be happy if you take him away, but Akino's a bit busy looking for Kira to try to figure out who his Shinigami is. Now, anywho. I only own my original characters and ideas. Anything you recognize probably belongs to someone else._

_**Warnings for this Chap**: Profanity, character death (not as bad as it sounds, believe me!), llamas, and a good healthy dose of sarcasm to get you through the day and/or night._

_**Mini-sum**: Alpha looked at the Shinigami miserably for a moment. Was this what she had to look forward to until she had a means to get to Britain again and dig up the Death Note? That definitely was not a pleasant thought._

_And onto the story!_

* * *

L had been facing a computer, his back to the door. Even so, the voice was uncanny. Even if the voice hadn't been recognizable, the intonation in which it spoke that one work would have been. She always had that easily amused sound to her voice, the sort of lilt that marked a troublemaker – which was just what she was, it always had been. Her calling him 'llama' had been the first bit of trouble she had caused. The investigation team could known nothing about his past, but now they would know two things.

They would know that he was familiar with this slight nuisance and that it had a strange tendency to refer to him as a llama.

As was to be expected (in fact, everyone in the room probably would have grown confused if anything else but this had happened), Matsuda was the first to break the rather awkward silence.

"L… llama?" he repeated, his voice somewhere between uncertain and amused. Of course Matsuda would be amused, L thought, rolling his eyes. If L allowed her on the investigation team, the idiot might just have a new best friend.

"Oh, yeah," Alpha said, maneuvering herself out of the company of the group and taking a seat on the sofa in the room. "Bet you lot had no idea you were working under a Camelid. Although looking at that hair, it might just be an alpaca rather than a llama." She laughed. "L-paca. _Anyway_," she added, moving over on the couch so she was closer to where L was seated, to speak directly to him, "I was informed that an 'L' wished to speak with me. Any ideas on who that could be?"

L looked over finally from both his cake and his laptop computer. Glared rather than looked, however. He didn't reply before standing up and walking over to the investigation team. "As I said earlier. You have all been working nonstop. Take the night off and return tomorrow at noon." They all reflexively glanced at Alpha at this. She smiled and waved at the group in response.

"But Ryuzaki," Yagami said quietly, "if she _is_ Kira, shouldn't you be –"

"If she is Kira, Yagami-san, then it doesn't matter whether I am alone here or not," said L. "We will most likely all be dead by tomorrow regardless. However, I strongly doubt that she is."

"Why?" Aizawa asked. "She knows all of our names, so she's obviously been spying on us. Why else would she spy on us if she's not at least connected to Kira?"

"Maybe she wants to help catch him," Matsuda suggested, shrugging.

L didn't often agree with Matsuda, so it amazed him that he was the only one thinking along the same lines as him. Of course the thought would have been foolish for L himself to have if he didn't know who Alpha was already. Matsuda didn't.

Nevertheless, L nodded shortly. "All of you, go home. Come back tomorrow at noon and be prepared to work on the Kira case."

They did indeed all leave, all of them looking somewhat perplexed at the idea that L had just agreed with Matsuda. Matsuda himself even looked slightly confused, though L was fairly sure that Matsuda always looked at least slightly confused at any given moment.

L turned to face Alpha now, who was staring up at the ceiling when Ukita left through the door last and shut it behind him. L reached back and locked it, then took a seat in the chair across the sofa Alpha was seated at. She looked at him now.

She looked older, as though she had aged a year or two more than she should have since she left the orphanage. She did still look like Alpha, as Alpha was completely unmistakable. There were a number of questions he had been planning to ask her, but there were a few, slightly more important ones that needed to be asked now.

"Why are you here?"

She looked at L as though he was mad for a moment, and then laughed a little. "This case, obviously," she said. "I'm sorry to say it. I know you're a thousand times smarter than I'll ever be, but if you were to work this case without help that actually would be a help to you at all, then you'd be killed. It might be a while, but you would be. The world needs you to solve all their problems, but you're going to need me to help you solve this case. Granted I'm only number three, but you've had number two put in maximum security prison after the maniac lit himself on fire."

"What makes you think I couldn't solve the case on my own?"

"You've let people see your face," she said. "L doesn't let people see his face if he's not desperate to solve a case. In fact, you never have let any police you've worked with in the past see you. Face it," she added with a slight sigh, leaning forward and propping her elbows on her knees, "I know what you're like."

"How did you know about Beyond Birthday?"

"I've been following your cases for a lot longer than you might have thought."

There was a bit more silence in which L contemplated this. If she had been following his cases that closely without him even realizing that _someone_ might have been spying on him, then perhaps she would be a big help with the Kira case. She was more intelligent than she gave herself credit for – or than she often chose to show, hence why L was sure she and Matsuda would get along as soon as he got over his fear that she might kill everyone – and would definitely be an asset to the case.

There was more, though, questions that had been burning in his mind since the day he had arrived at Wammy's after one case to find Mello wearing her rosary and telling him a story of how Beyond Birthday had stood outside the door to her room with a knife for quite a long time, how he had scared her into leaving. L knew she had talked to him, and he himself had come to fear the worst, that she had merely left to put a bullet through her own skull and meet the same fate that A had. He had kept telling himself that Alpha would be the last person to do that, but the thought remained.

"Why did you leave?" he asked finally after a long silence.

Alpha smiled wryly. "Knew that one was coming. Can't tell you."

Without that notebook, Alpha had no proof of anything. That notebook with those two little words written on its front cover – and even with it, she had nothing if the Shinigami attached to it was still with Beyond. What would a notebook prove? Nothing, unless the Shinigami was there for L to see when he touched the notebook. She would have told him. If she had stayed a day longer at Wammy's, she would have been able to tell him and things would have turned out differently. She wouldn't have had to sneak around to follow L's cases. She could have just talked Watari into letting her help out with the Kira case. B would have been out of her mind, far away in a straight jacket in a padded room until Akino got bored with being confined and killed him so he could go elsewhere.

But she had been a coward, and for that she was paying now. She wanted to tell L. She truly did, but he was the type of person that wouldn't have believed it without solid proof, which she had none of.

"It had to do with B."

Alpha nodded in agreement. "That it did."

"Have you spoken with Mello since you left?" Alpha shook her head no, now averting her eyes entirely.

"I feel worse than anything for leaving him behind. I know contacting him would mean going through Roger to do so, and I'm not entirely sure I even want _him_ to know I'm alive and well. I'd be surprised if much of anyone there cares if I'm still alive or not."

"Maybe not Roger," said L. "You have to know that Mello does. The first question he always asks me every time I go back there is whether or not I've found out anything about you."

"I know Mello would. Probably Matt as well. But who else is there? I didn't have enough friends to count on one hand." With a frustrated sigh, she sat back against the back of the couch, crossed her arms, and glared at the ceiling. "I don't mind being alone. I just hate being alone with the knowledge that no one really gives a damn about whether or not I ever make my prescence known again."

"You can't say 'no one,'" said L. "There was Mello and Matt, of course. There was also Watari and myself. While Mello might be the only person who constantly questions me about whether or not I've heard anything from you, I can assure you that no one was at all happy the day after you left once the word got around that you were gone."

Alpha gave a somewhat hollow laugh. "Stick to being a detective. Therapy isn't your strong point. I've got Marcus Antonius in here for that," she said, patting the shoulder strap messenger bag set on the sofa next to her. "Ant, rather." She sat up a bit straighter. "I'm glad I managed to find you, though," she said. "I missed having a llama to bother all the time. I considered going to Peru to pick up a new one, but it wouldn't have been quite the same." She smiled brightly at the annoyed look she received at this. "You'll want to save some of that for the investigation team tomorrow. I'll probably fall asleep soon," she added, looking at the watch on her wrist. "I've lost quite a bit of sleep stalking you, I'll have you know. I highly doubt you sleep, I thought you'd started wearing eyeliner when I saw those eye bags a minute ago. You should really do something about that."

"I don't sleep much when I work cases."

Alpha nodded and stood up. "Then I'll be taking the bed, as I do value sleep. You can have the couch. Or that chair. If you sleep at all, that is."

––

_Well, I do believe I have made my way onto the investigation team. I'm a bit too tired now to give full details. I've just stolen the bedroom in Llama's hotel suite and I'd like to get a bit of sleep tonight. Stalking secretive detectives really takes it out of a person._

_Goodnight, Ant. I'll tell ya a bit more tomorrow, buddy._

_January 21, 2004_

––

Alpha, who had been lying flat on her stomach with the notebook propped up on a pillow, closed her notebook and dropped it on top of her bag, which lay on the bed next to her. She then tossed the bag carelessly over the side as she told over onto her back to stare up at the ceiling. It had taken her a while to get here. Lots of lies, even more snooping and stalking. It didn't make her a bad person. She had done plenty already to prove that she was a bad person. This was just further evidence of her immorality.

_Oh, I'm going to hell when I die,_ she thought, then laughed quietly before closing her eyes and drifting off into a somewhat uneasy sleep.

Alpha awoke rather late the next morning. Just waking up, even with her eyes closed, there was a nagging feeling within her mind that this would probably be a horrible day. The first horrible thing was that she was comfortable, but the sunlight creeping in through the window and showing itself in orange and red coloration on the backs of her eyelids meant she would soon have to rise and begin work on the Kira case. The second thing didn't come until she opened her eyes.

Oh, it was going to be a bad day, she knew that. Particularly for her. _Particularly_ because a rather familiar face was hovering over her on that particular morning. And when she attempted to punch it, her hand when straight through its face. She refrained from screaming at the disturbance; that would have been too feminine of a reaction for her taste. Despite the fact she was a girl, the last thing she could bear to think of herself as was girly. Anyone else probably would have screamed.

Looking at the half fleshy, half skeletal face, she merely gaped. Not for long, though.

After all, it _was_ a familiar face.

"_You!_" she hissed at it. "It" remained hovering over top of her with his wings spread, sitting cross-legged in the air, looking rather bored.

"_Obviously,"_ said Akino. He looked around. _"Japan, huh? That kinda figures, I got used to English after that B kid."_

Alpha blinked a few times. What in God's name (though she doubted this disturbance had anything whatsoever to do with God) was this damned Shinigami doing _here_? It – unless…

"_B's dead," _said Alpha quietly.

"_Whoa, talk about being slow on the uptake,"_ said Akino with a laugh. _"Nice. Got any apples?"_ He added, looking around again as though expecting a bowl of them to magically appear somewhere in the room.

"As soon as you start being a shit?" said Alpha coldly, sitting up on the side of the bed. "Maybe."

"_Great, this'll be just as bad as confinement. B, by the way – heart attack. Damndest thing, I doubt he was even twenty yet. I thought for sure you'd done it."_

"M – me?" said Alpha, alarmed. "How could I have done it?"

Akino shifted around so his face was hanging upside down in front of hers. _"Death Note? Ring any bells? It's why I'm here. You were the last in possession of it, which means I have to follow you around now that B's dead."_

"If it was a heart attack, it was probably Kira," Alpha said thoughtfully, more to herself than the Shinigami. Still, he raised an eyebrow – his only flesh-covered eyebrow, actually – and reverted to standing on the floor in front of her now, arms crossed and wings folded behind him.

"_Who?"_

"Local killer. L's pegged him as being in Japan. He's killing criminals by somehow giving them heart attacks."

At this, Akino seemed to brighten from his boredom significantly – even though his grin did have a slightly malicious quality to it, Alpha noted. She supposed all Shinigami had to look like that. It was probably in the job description.

Akino gave a short, amused laugh. _"Ah, that's awesome," _he said. _"Looks like this will be a bit more interesting than confinement."_

"Why?"

"_Think about it for a while. It should come to you."_

Alpha glared. "Why not just tell me?"

"_Your slowness entertains me."_

"You're a son of a bitch, you know that?"

"_I'm not a son of anyone, thank you."_

Alpha glared at the Shinigami at this, who looked around the room boredly again, mumbling something about apples. She did decide to think about it, however. Considering how she had not just a Shinigami following her, but a _stubborn_ Shinigami, she wouldn't be able to ask many questions, but she could count on being bothered herself. The answer came to her quickly enough, however.

"The Death Note," she said, snapping Akino out of his apple-hunting state, "could be used to kill in any way."

"_Right."_

"Right," said Alpha. "And thinking about it, I imagine there are more Shinigami than just you. So, another Shinigami recently dropped another Death Note, which the person who is now Kira had the misfortune of picking up."

"_Exactly. And you have no way to prove it except for an invisible phantom following you around."_ He laughed when Alpha glared. _"This is awesome, I could see why a Shinigami would want to get into this. Wonder who it could've been,"_ he added thoughtfully, crossing his arms and looking up at the ceiling. _"Most of those sons of bitches – figuratively speaking, of course – are too lazy to get up off their asses and do anything besides gamble and sleep. What makes it all the worse is that Shinigami don't get tired and therefore don't need sleep. They're just a bunch of idiots. I'm not saying all of them are bad. The King obviously gets his fair share of work done, even if he doesn't move much. Then there's Nu, she ranks just below the King. Or did last time I was there, it's been a little while. Jastin's probably still up pretty high, maybe higher than before. Don't know. Then Dalil, last I knew I was ranked right after her."_

"That's… all nice, but more importantly," said Alpha, "is there any way for you to find out who Kira is?"

Akino shrugged. _"Depends on what's in it for me."_

"Apples?"

"_All right, fair deal. If I see another Shinigami following someone around, I'll let you know as long as I've been getting apples. You cut off my supply, I cut off your information. And where's my Death Note, by the way?" _Alpha pointed to a belt around the middle of his trench coat, where a notebook was locked securely in place. He looked down for a moment in reflex, then slowly glared back up. Alpha smiled. _"Stop that. You know what I'm talking about."_

"Oh, you mean _my_ Death Note?" said Alpha. "Still in Britain. Buried."

Akino gaped at her for a moment. _"You've gotta be fucking kidding me."_

Alpha laughed. "Not at all. And I have no way of getting there, and who's to say it hasn't been moved since then? Looks like we're pretty well stuck, eh?"

"_Dammit…"_ Akino grumbled. _"Thought I might actually be able to go back for a while…"_

Alpha remained quiet upon hearing footsteps near the doorway. L opened the door into the room a moment later. She looked at him from the edge of her bed. "Knock much?"

"It's eleven thirty," he said. "You need to be ready for work in a half an hour if you plan to help the investigation team."

And with that, he left. Always right to business. Alpha looked up at Akino, who was glaring at the doorframe in an utterly vicious manner. "Hey," she said, "if you even think about it, I'll kick your ass so hard you'll lose half the years you've built up killing people."

Akino looked at her now. _"How the hell do you know so much about Shinigami?"_

"The internet does wonders," she said, standing and stretching. "What've you got against L?"

"_I was stuck in solitary confinement with Beyond Birthday for way longer than anyone could ever stand – human or Shinigami, doesn't matter which – because of that bastard."_

"B's fault, not L's."

Akino looked at the doorframe again, muttered something along the lines of _"too many damned letters,"_ and flew over to take a seat on the dresser in the room in a huffy manner. Alpha looked at the Shinigami miserably for a moment. Was this what she had to look forward to until she had a means to get to Britain again and dig up the Death Note? That definitely was not a pleasant thought.

* * *

_See? Told you the character death wasn't that bad. It was already preset in the LABB Murder Cases novel._

_Anyways. Comments? Questions? Advice? Flames? Feel free to post them in comments! And as far as flames, as I've said before, feel free to set aflame anything you wish. I'm a pyromaniac and flames amuse me._


	3. Inconspicuously Floating Apples

_Been a while, eh? But I don't ever abandon my stories, I just go on indefinite hiatuses from them. Sorry for taking so long with this._

_I'm a bit busy right now, so I can't reply to any reviews; I'll just say thank you for all of them :)_

_But, as a bit of a preview, I'll tell you that you get to find out a bit more about my lovable smart ass of a shinigami in the chapter. Yay? I think so!  
_

* * *

––

_Holy mother of Bob. I was caught by the infamous Llama. It's twenty to life now._

_Not really. Fear not, Ant. Even if I did head off to prison, you'd be coming with me. But I'm not , so don't worry about it. I'm just working on the investigation team._

_And I'm totally fucking psyched out about it =D_

_I told you I'd tell you everything today, see? And you thought I was lying!_

_Of course, you're a notebook and you can't think. Maybe that's what Karen was talking about when she started saying stuff about delusional. I thought that was just her regular mumbojumbo._

_Yeah, whatever. Getting on with it. To give you an update, paperbud, I found Llama and then he found me. Actually, his people found me. Matsuda and Aizawa did first._

––

Alpha paused here for a moment and looked at the names, then scratched through them. She protected that notebook with her life, but there would be hell to pay if anyone ever _did_ get hold of Ant and read the notebook, particularly if that someone happened to be Kira. She continued writing.

––

_Goofball and Afro, I mean. That's how I have to refer to them in case the notebook's found. You're almost as classified as the notebook BB had used to do away with A – God forbid anyone should ever find that notebook, I'd be __screwed__ beyond belief._

_Let's see, so there's Chief, Goofball, Afro, Frank N. Stein, Chainsmoke, and, of course, the one and only Lambda. Llama to me, as you so know. And we're all hunting the Killer Koala. I know this probably makes no sense to you Ant, but if I ever lose you and someone picks you up, I can't have anyone know what I'm talking about. This is my code and I alone understand it. You may one day when it's all over._

_So here I sit in a suite in the Otto Inn (also code name) searching for a Killer Koala with a Llama leading the investigation. Isn't that a bitch? In the words of the greatest internet song about llamas in the world, "time for me to retire now, I've become a duck."_

_In other words, with that Llama Song sentiment to end by, I now leave thee, Ant._

_Janua_

_Oh, almost forgot. There's now a bloody Shiniwatchamacallit following me around. Bloody hell, does it suck. Damn thing. And B's dead, by the way. Thought you should know._

_Okay, gone now._

_January 22, 2004_

––

Alpha shut her notebook and looked around at the investigation headquarters. It was a truly nice hotel suite. The investigation wasn't too horribly far in yet, and Alpha herself didn't know much about Kira, only what she had overheard L saying in the past. That definitely wasn't much. Sure, she had been second best in their year at the orphanage, but second best _wasn't_ the best. L was the best, and Alpha was almost positive she had only come up with about half of what L had for the Kira case. Even so, that was probably twice as much as what any police department on Earth could have concluded without L's help on the case.

As Alpha was stowing away her notebook, Ukita happened to glance up from his paperwork.

"You realize we can't keep written records of anything happening here, don't you?" Alpha looked up from the messenger bag next to her end of the sofa.

"Yes. Those aren't notes on the case."

"Then what is it?"

Alpha racked her memory. "A… 'means of disposing of my subconscious mind's anomalies and oddities through writing in general.' I think that's what Karen said it was," she added in a mumble. "It's my psychodiary. His name is Marcus Antonius."

"_You named your notebook?"_ came a perplexed voice from behind the sofa. Alpha ignored it, knowing she was the only one that _could_ hear it. _"Wow. Slow."_ Alpha shot a glare over her shoulder, but otherwise ignored the disturbance. She had to be careful around the investigation team, even around L, in regards to when she spoke to Akino.

It wasn't until a few hours later in the day that L suspected there was something a bit offhand going on, at right around the time Alpha decided to compare notes on the Kira case with, of all the people in the room, _Matsuda_. It was even more obvious at about the time they both burst into laughter while looking at something on the laptop L allowed the investigation team to use for researching purposes. L gave a quick glance around the room. He caught Aizawa and Ukita both glaring at the cause of disturbance; Mogi glancing up from piles of paperwork, shaking his head, and going back to the papers; and Yagami attempting to ignore it despite the vein ticking away like a time bomb in his temple.

And apparently, the time bomb had just run out.

"If there is _anything_," he said loudly and rather angrily, causing everyone in the room (except L, who had been expecting this) to jump, "at _all_ that either of you find funny about the Kira case, please feel free to share it with the rest of us."

Alpha blinked a few times from the sofa. She shook her head no slowly. "No Mr. Yagami-san sir. Sorry." However, upon glancing up at L, she gave a snort of laughter that she didn't quite manage to pass off as a cough. "Sorry," she said again upon seeing the look she was receiving. "Won't happen again."

"I definitely hope not."

"_Ha,"_ Alpha heard Akino say behind her in mild amusement. _"Pwned."_ Alpha pretended to scratch the back of her head, but instead reached behind her head to flip Akino off. _"I'm not good on sign language,"_ he said cheerfully. _"You'll have to speak up. When am I gonna be getting all these damn apples you promised me? I'm telling the truth when I say you don't want to see what happens when I start going through withdrawl. They're like crack for me, come on!"_

Alpha refrained from letting her vision turn into a glare as she picked the laptop back up from the coffee table and closed out the YouTube page she had been on – it wasn't _her_ fault that some people had never seen the Llama Song video; she didn't see why Yagami had to go all bad-cop on her over it. Although, she had to admit that she did need to be on task. It was hard to be on task with such a distraction as a llama in the room. She vaguely wondered what would happen if she introduced a duck into this environment. She then coughed and managed to successfully cover a few stray sniggers.

Yes, she needed to be on task. She had to prove to the investigation team that she _was_ an asset and not an unneeded nuisance. They already thought of Matsuda as an unneeded nuisance, but he actually wasn't. Aside from being the comic relief, he was more or less a stress reliever, someone to take out anger on. Aizawa in particular seemed to enjoy telling him off on a daily basis for saying something stupid. No one would tell Alpha off more than once, because _she_ actually countered it. Therefore, if she didn't prove to be useful soon, everyone would be looking to have her off of the investigation team and possibly arrested for holding officers of the law at gunpoint.

Well, maybe not everyone. L might stick up for her, as they were sort of supposed to be friends and everything. Matsuda would if Yagami didn't tell him not to. Alpha had basically profiled all of them already. With Matsuda, if Yagami said jump, he would ask how high, or off which building, depending on the situation. Then Aizawa, who liked hard work and his afro, but loathed L and Matsuda (and probably Alpha by now as well). Ukita liked cigarettes and being a smart mouth, but also disliked Matsuda – he was slightly more tolerable of L, as the Kira case needed the abnormal, llama-like detective. Yagami loved his job and his family and disliked those who slacked off on the job. Mogi was a bit harder to peg considering the fact that Alpha had only heard him speak maybe five full sentences over the past week she had been with the investigation team, and he still reminded her of Frankenstein's monster, hence the name Ant would be destined to know him by until the Kira case was solved.

Absently, Alpha found herself typing the words "death note" into a search engine. Well, it was apparently what Kira was using to kill of criminals, so the results might turn out to be at least slightly fruitful, though no one would believe Kira was using something from legends and folklore to kill. No, there had to be a completely logical reason for the completely illogical murders of hundreds of criminals by means of heart attack. But of _course_ there had to. Alpha rolled her eyes and clicked on a link to the first page she saw the word "shinigami" in the description of.

"_Ah, reading up on us, are ya?"_ she heard a voice say next to her. She looked over to see Akino floating upside down beside her, looking at the page as such. _"There won't be much, we don't let humans see us very often. Ya might find something useful, but not much at all on death notes. Unless Kira's an idiot, of course."_

Alpha, rolling her eyes, moved the mouse pointer to the task bar, clicked on the start button in the corner, and pulled up a notepad file, upon which she typed the words, "Fuck you, shinigami."

"_Oh, can't ya spare a bit of sympathy? I'm bored as hell, I've been stuck here for days! Without any fucking apples, thank you very much. It's a damn good thing you don't own a dog, it'd end up starving to death."_

She backspaced the first line and typed next, "Come up with a way for me to get out and I'll get you as many apples as you want. I'm not very entertained right now, either, Yagami made me shut off the llama song which completely sucked."

"_L's out of coffee. Go over there and get the last cup, act like you're about to make some more, and then point out that there isn't any more to be made. He'll probably tell you to go buy some, giving you prerogative to get the hell out of here and get me a bag full of apples."_

"Attentive to detail, aren't you?"

"_I've been stuck here for __**days**__, there's nothing better to do than float around and examine random crap…"_ Akino grumbled.

He flipped back into an upright position (Alpha dodged one of his wings as he did so, still not used to the fact that they wouldn't actually hit her but instead just go through her) and flew over to the other side of the room by the coffee maker. Alpha checked her own cup to make sure it was actually empty before closing the notepad file on her computer, as well as her internet window, and setting the laptop on the table. She picked up the cup and headed across the room to where Akino was hovering by the coffee maker, looking quite impatient. Alpha poured what was left of the coffee pot into her empty cup and checked the bottom part of the end table it was set upon, where the coffee creamer, sugar cubes, other sweeteners, and extra coffee was kept. There was indeed not a bit left.

"Hey, we're out of coffee," she said, straightening back out and looking at the rest of the team. Everyone else in the room looked at L cautiously. L didn't glance up from his paperwork.

"I thought that might happen soon. Watari is currently too busy…."

"I'll go buy some," Alpha offered, trying to sound helpful. "I don't think I could survive an hour of working on this case without it." There were mumbles of general agreement around the room.

"Go ahead."

Alpha was more than glad to "go ahead," and she therefore found herself in a convenient store about fifteen minutes later, paying for quite a bit more coffee and apples than the average person would generally wish to consume. When she placed it all on the counter, she received a rather odd look from the clerk.

"Will this be all…?"

"Yes, just ring it up," Alpha said, trying to keep the dismay from her voice when she heard laughter behind her, horrible cackling laughter that no one but her could hear. The clerk gave her a few more odd looks as he was ringing everything up, which Akino apparently found absolutely hilarious judging by his incessant laughter. Once out of the store, Alpha shot a glare at the shinigami, who was still grinning in an extremely amused fashion.

"You'll be lucky if you get any of these apples now, asshole," Alpha shot at him.

"_Aw, come on, it was funny! Did you see the looks –"_

"_Yes_, I saw the looks I was getting thanks to _your_ apple fetish. Now be a good shinigami and keep quiet, and I might consider giving you an apple."

He scoffed. _"Fuck __**that**__."_ And when Alpha turned her head to look back at him to see what he was up to, he was straightening up, apple in hand. _"I'm faster than you. That means I can have as many apples as I want."_

"Put that down, someone'll see it!"

"_And I care… because?"_ He took a bite of the apple. _"Deal with it. Hell, maybe Kira'll walk past and see an apple floating behind you and be dumb enough to ask if it's a shinigami. Then you'll have more information on the case than anyone – wait, you couldn't use it since you're the only one that can see me. Wow, this really sucks for you, doesn't it?"_

"Yes," Alpha snapped, then added miserably, "I really despise you, you know that?"

"_Ah, just complain about it in that notebook thing later and get over it. Honestly, in my opinion, you're an improvement from B. That bastard, I was just getting around to planning exactly how I was going to kill him when he had a heart attack. It sorta pissed me off, I'd like to have a word with Kira's shinigami and find out what the fuck he's giving out death notes for."_

"Maybe he just dropped a spare one," Alpha said with a shrug. "Isn't that what you did?"

"_Yeah,"_ Akino said with a sigh. _"And after the predicament that got me into, the Shinigami King banned everyone from having spare death notes. Nice, huh? Waits until after I get my ass stuck in the human world and doesn't do anything about it except give everyone else even less reason to head over to the human world."_

"Why didn't you just kill B and be done with it? It would've been a bit easier, I'd think."

"_I was too pissed off to think about it, and when I figured out I could, I decided I didn't really want to go back to the Shinigami World anyway. Pretty much sucks there. Everyone gambles and sleeps all the time, I only had a couple buddies there that'd help me wreak havoc over here. I was responsible for quite a few major disasters back then," he added with a laugh. "Take for instance, if there was a tropical storm out in the Atlantic and I wrote that a category five hurricane would kill someone in a certain amount of time, that tropical storm'd turn into a category five hurricane and hit land exactly where the person I specified was. Then bombings, same deal." He laughed. "It took more than one of us to start wars, but we accidently figured out that was possible, too. If ya word it right, the death note can do just about anything within reason. I'm betting it was one of my old buddies that dropped the death note Kira picked up. I hope so, actually. I'd like to be in close proximity of another one I actually get along with instead of one of those gambling bastards. You humans have it made; you don't like someone, you can just kill them. Us, we're stuck with each other until one forgets to write names in their death note for too long and dies."_

"What wars _did_ you start?" Alpha asked curiously, paying no heed to the family that had just walked past her that was gaping at the floating apple hovering behind her; if Akino was going to be a bastard about things, she was just going to have to get used to gaping bystanders.

"_War, it was only one, I told you it was an accident…. Vietnam, I think it was. We hung around and watched it develop, it was nuts. We only got life off of the people whose names were actually written in the death note originally, but still, wars are a minefield of opportunity for us. We can kill people off like crazy without anyone questioning it since it's a war and no one knows the difference. It'll probably be a few thousand years before I actually __**need**__ to write down another name after all that. I'd probably get my level upped if I went back to the Shinigami World at this point for that, I actually haven't been back since we started that war. It probably pissed off the King to no end, but that's his problem if his ass was too lazy to come find me. Hey, check that out!" _he added quite suddenly, sounding amused.

Alpha glanced back at Akino to see what he was pointing at. The first thing she saw was a boy walking down the other side of the road on the opposite sidewalk, probably in his late teens. The next thing, though, was quite obviously what Akino was pointing at. Floating along behind him (and he looked slightly annoyed about it, to say the least) was an apple that appeared to be eating itself.

"_That's really inconspicuous,"_ Akino said sarcastically.

"Yeah, and you _are_?"

"_No, but you're not Kira so you don't have much reason to care about apples floating behind your head, do ya?"_

"Yes I _do_, I don't appreciate the concept of it much at all."

"_Yeah, whatever. Hey!"_ he called across the street. _"Ryuk, you son of a bitch, what the hell're you doing following around a human like a fuckin' dog?"_

The floating apple stopped, and the kid it was following glanced over his shoulder and said something, then looked across the street. He spotted the apple first. With a sigh, Alpha sat down on one of the benches that lined the sidewalk. A shinigami definitely wouldn't have been _her_ choice in a pet. The bastard was out to get her killed, she thought as he hovered across the road to his fellow apple addict. And if that _was_ Kira the other shinigami was following, then he might just end up succeeding.

* * *

_Reviews are appreciated as always, so are favorites and alerts :)_


	4. Phone Call

_Comment replies._

_HeeHeeHee01: Akino is a bit of a bastard, isn't he?  
TheeBooksInTheFire: They wouldn't be as great if they weren't crazy and apple addicted. And the war **was** an "accident" :P  
Sparanda: I heard. It made me sad because it wasn't playing in any theaters around here :( I've so gotta get my brother to download it soon.  
ActionFry: Weell, Kira was already Killer Koala. I haven't given a separate name to Light yet in this chapter, but I changed Kira's codename. Seriously, though - put a couple of bolts in Mogi's neck and dye his skin greenish and he'd be like an anime Frankenstein XD I make strange observations.  
Takun123: Me too. Being that it's sorta not in this chapter. Alpha may have slightly chickened out a little bit and had her shinigami reschedule it for her but Aaaaanywho.  
Rinnalinn: I love Akino, but that could just be because he's my first OC shinigami and everything. And because he's a smart ass.  
13Lulu's: Yeaah, can't blame you there.  
n a g a s h i . n o . k u r o: Yep. Update. XP_

_Aaaanywhozles. Onto the story?_

* * *

Alpha kept her eyes off to the side, rather nervously, though she was sure he had seen that the floating apple had been near her. What else could he possibly assume? And surely Kira wouldn't want another death note user around, one that could possibly foil his plans by discovering his name and killing _him_. Alpha silently thanked whatever force was watching over her for the fact that she had lived at Wammy's for enough of her life for her identity to be protected better than most other humans. She didn't _think_ Akino was enough of a bastard to go giving out her name to random people. Aside from him, the only person that knew her real name was Watari, and he wasn't going to tell anyone. It was his duty to keep any orphan from the Wammy House's identity safe.

She heard Akino cackle, and she scowled. What the hell was that idiot shinigami _thinking_?

She knew when she looked up and he was back in front of her. He reached through the bag sitting next to her (and she scowled, despising the fact that she couldn't kick his ass for this since he could go translucent whenever he pleased) and grabbed another apple. _"The Kira kid wants to talk to ya,"_ he said, sounding _deathly_ amused. Alpha glared at him as he took a bite of apple. Akino shrugged. _"What'd ya expect? If ya distract him for long enough, I might be able to make it so you can see his shinigami without him figuring it out."_

"Oh, _thanks_."

"_Hey, I'm trying to be helpful!"_

"No, what _you're_ trying to do is get me _killed_!" she said, pointing at him accusingly. "What if he's got that thing that B did where he automatically knows my name?"

Akino shook his head. _"He doesn't. Apparently the King did up my level if I can tell the difference now,"_ he added, quite proudly. Alpha grimaced. _"I'm a level three or two now. Two's generally as high as anyone can get, almost no one gets up to one. Anyway, yeah, I doubt you give a damn. You don't have to talk to the kid, but he might follow you if ya don't, which you probably don't want happening. Then he might figure out where L is."_

"You don't have any plans of walking in there waving an apple behind my head, do you?"

He sighed. _"No…"_ he said disappointedly – he had definitely been planning something, then. _"I __**guess**__ I can be a good shinigami and go in the other room to eat them…"_

"Thank you."

"_Yeah, just don't get used to me being subservient. I'm just being nice since I got so many apples."_ He looked back at the kid and the other floating apple. _"What should my message be?"_

"Tell him I'll agree to meet up with him later, and that I'm in a hurry right now. Have him send his shinigami to tell you to get me, if he won't tell _him_ that I'm on the investigation team."

"_He won't, he's just in this for laughs,"_ Akino said. _"I can't blame him, it is pretty amusing."_

"Yeah. Shinigami find death and destruction and war amusing, I know."

"_I told you that war was an accident…"_ he grumbled. He spread out his wings and hovered across the street back over to the boy and his fellow apple wielder. Alpha watched disinterestedly, her heart pounding at rates that probably signaled heart attacks in normal people, and waited for Akino to come back. He took only a moment to roughly explain the situation before flying back over, and giving her a reply. _"A week from now,"_ he said. _"That side of the road over there, same place basically, so you should be able to find it."_

"Time?"

"_Noon."_

"That works," she said, though the idea did make her apprehensive. Kira was suspicious of her. That wasn't good at all. "I'll just have to make sure the investigation team is out of coffee again by then."

Akino cringed. _"This doesn't involve you being hyper, does it?"_

"Depends on how much caffeine I have to ingest." Akino cringed again, and Alpha laughed. "Good, now I have a secret weapon."

"_I'm a shinigami. I could easily just kill you," _he pointed out.

Alpha shrugged. "Good point." She stood up. "I take it we can go?"

"_Yep. Should be able to."_ He commenced floating behind her with an apple again, which would no doubt coax more strange looks from passersby. Alpha sighed inwardly at this. Yes, passersby would think she was some strange sort of psychic, but it wasn't exactly something that she could stop herself. Akino wouldn't listen for anything.

* * *

- - - - - - - - - - - - -_  
I never thought I would say this, but I miss Wammys. I miss my blonde mini-me and that red-headed game addicted techie. I just heart Watery (woot!codenames) on the phone with Rabbit a minute ago – he had to nform Wammy's that their missing number had been found (took his time, didn't he? Not that I blame him for not wanting to talk to Rabbit, of course) and I overheard him and I went all nostalgia-memories on my ass._

_Not to mention, remaining here will mean meeting Duck (by the way, Ant, that's Killer Koala's new codename. I'm sure __you'll__ understand the Llama Song reference) next week, and I fear for my life. I managed to avoid it today – Akino's a stupid apple-eating bastard – but I can't avoid it forever now. It's not like I have a Death Note, so I'm not a threat to him at all or anything. As long as he doesn't find out I associate with llamas I should be all right._  
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

"_Weirdo…"_ Alpha threw a glance over her shoulder at Akino, who had been reading as she wrote. She glared in response then, and moved over on her bed. He took another bite of one of his apples. _"What? Come on, what's up with the codenames? You guard that damn thing like it's a death note, it's not like anyone'll ever get close enough to it to read it. And seriously, __**Rabbit**__?"_

"Roger Rabbit," Alpha said, rolling her eyes. "You're a shinigami, I' wouldn't expect you to understand."

"_Watery."_

"Hey, I thought everyone was calling him Mr. Watery when I first got to Wammy's!" she said defensively.

"_Duck?"_

"Llama Song."

"_I still don't understand the Llama thing entirely."_

Alpha sighed. "The Greek letter for L is Lambda. I shortened it to Llama."

"Uh-_huh_. Any other code names?"

"Mello is Minime, I already mentioned that. Matt's 'Gameboy.' Near is either 'Sheep' or 'that little sheepy bastard.'"

"_I was being sarcastic."_

"Sorry. I must not be familiar with sarcasm in Shinispeak."

"_Hey, how come I don't get a code name."_

Alpha gave a snort of laughter. "Akino's weird enough to be a code name already."

She was glad to hear the sounds of wings spreading out at this, accompanied by annoyed grumblinkg. Akino was going to leave her alone for at least a little while – that was a good thing. She hated people – and shinigami – reading over her shoulder while she was writing _anything_. She glared at the patch of wall Akino had just floated off through before going back to her notebook.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -_  
Akino left! Woo! Probably not for long, though,don't get too excited. He's probably just off to start another war somewhere or something. Is it just me, or do the words "shinigami" and "fun" used together in the same sentence automatically seem to mean disaster? I think so. It seems so, at least._

_Ugh. I want chocolate._

_And dammit, Rabbit had better let Minime know that I'm all right. I miss that foulmouthed little hellion._

_Dammit. Ant, stop making me all nostalgic before I replace you with a new notebook and name it Julius._

_Kidding!_

_But seriously. Nostalgia sucks. Bigtime. As in, worse than a vacuum cleaner. You wouldn't know since you're a notebook, but I can assure you that it is no fun at all. I klnow I would hate it back at Wammy's. I'd be way too homicidal what with that silly Rabbit bugging me. Doesn't he know Trix are for kids? Sorry, couldn't resist._

_Heck, I even miss that sheepy bastard that never said more that two words to me! I think he was afraid of me. I usually have that effect on little kids. Minime was just a strange exception to that, and I'm not even sure if Gameboy ever saw anything beyond his games. Or goggles. I think I even scared Llama a little on occasion. I_  
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Alpha glanced up at the doorframe quickly upon seeing a change in the light, then shut her notebook quickly. "Knock much?" she asked in a falsely curious tone. L blinked in response.

"Who were you talking to?" Alpha held up her notebook pointedly. "Did you rename it?"

"Huh?"

"Whoever you were talking to, you seemed to refer to them as Akino." Alpha's heart stopped for a moment. "It actually sounds familiar…" he continued, suddenly going into deep-thought mode, signified by the biting of his thumbnail and eyes swiveling up to stare at the ceiling. Uh-oh. That was a very bad thing.

"I was… I heard Watari's conversation with Roger. I was just discussing… _things_ with Ant here." L's brow furrowed slightly at the word "discussing," but he spoke nothing of it. He would have been told off if he had, so that was quite wise. "That name probably came up once or twice."

"And what is it?"

"Think B."

His eyebrows rose back to their normal height as he understood. "Oh."

"Did you know Kira got him?" she asked. "I saw his name in the prison victim files in the paperwork."

"Yes. It wasn't that long ago, it was the first name I noticed after I saw what prison it was. Roger wishes to speak with you as soon as possible," he continued now, off of the subject of Beyond Birthday as though it had never been brought up. "Watari has information on how to contact him."

Alpha didn't mind the subject change. It allowed her to ask the question that would burn a hole in her tongue if it was allowed to stay sitting there for any longer. She had to know. "Did he tell –?"

"I believe that was what he wished to speak with you about," L intercepted before she could finish. Alpha raised an eyebrow in question. "I am unaware of the details, only that it does concern Mello. As the investigation team is not present at the moment, now would be the best time."

Alpha flinched inwardly, debating. She wasn't sure if her aversion to that old codger was stronger than her curiosity or now, but her curiosity definitely _seemed_ to have the upper hand in this, at least for the moment. She also couldn't bring herself to debate the subject of ignoring Roger if it also meant ignoring Mello. That was more than enough to make her give up the fight, right then and there, before she could even start it. She sighed.

"Where's Watari?" she asked resignedly.

L held up a piece of paper that Alpha had entirely missed, unaware until now that he had been holding it. "The phone number is here. As long as you write it down in your notebook, it will almost definitely never be found by anyone who shouldn't see it."

"'Almost' definitely?"

"A ninety nine percent chance."

Alpha rolled her eyes at in an overdramatic fashion at his usage of percentages as she hopped off of the bed she had claimed as hers, walked over to L, and retrieved the paper. "I'll bet he only mentioned Mello to trick me into calling him," she said starting to head back to her bed to retrieve her cell phone from her bag.

"I will have to ask that you do not use your phone." Alpha stopped and turned back around to face L, halfway to her bed, and raised her eyebrows in question. "The call could be intercepted," he explained. "I have installed a tap-proof phone within this hotel room, and it would be better for you to use it to contact Wammy's."

Alpha shrugged in silent agreement. "Same one Watari was using earlier?"

"Yes."

She walked back to the door and out of it, past L. In the sitting area, she fell onto the couch situated next to the end table that the phone was on and picked it up from its receiver. She looked at the paper and dialed the number written upon it, then waited through a few rings. The phone on the other end of the line was answered just as L took his previous spot at a table on the other side of the room with his laptop open.

"Hello?" Roger's voice said.

"I heard you wished to speak with me, Roger."

There was a silence on the other line for a moment. "Alpha," Roger said finally, his voice as toneless and monotonous as she remembered it. "To be completely honest, it is an amazement to me that you are even still alive."

Alpha gave a snort of laughter, though it was entirely humorless. "Thanks for the faith," she said sarcastically.

"You haven't changed at all, have you?" Roger asked, sounding exasperated.

"I could say the same for you," Alpha said venomously. "Now, I'm not calling you so we can reminisce over our utterly _wonderful_ time together as coworkers at Wammy's," she continued. "I'm sure you know _why_ I'm calling you."

"Mello." It wasn't a questin at all. Alpha was quiet for a moment, but then she spoke, her voice much quieter than she had intended it to be.

"Have you told him?"

"No." His businesslike tone of voice stung slightly. "You have been gone for four years. What makes you think he would be concerned about it after that amount of time?"

Alpha clenched her jaw shut, fighting back the wave of profanities she wanted to answer him with. She managed to answer calmly enough, though her anger shook her voice a little. "L told me that Mello has asked him about me every time he has returned to the orphanage since I left. Are you accusing him of lying?" Then, not quite as calmly, she continued through gritted teeth. "You're a bastard for even _suggesting_ that my absence has gone without any concern on his part. You didn't see that kid the night I left."

Roger sighed wearily on the other end of the conversation. "I thought it would be an attempt made in vain. Alpha, for a year after you left, Mello was probably the most antisocial child at this orphanage. He refused to speak with anyone but his roommate Matt in a civil manner, he was rude with his superiors, and his schoolwork fell so far behind that he was ranked close to the bottom of his age group. There is no denying that it devastated him. He is back to normal now – as normal as Mello can be. He is still rather arrogant with most of the other children and his teachers, but he _has_ improved."

Alpha found herself staring guiltily at her knees before Roger had even finished. She had lied to herself, and she had done one hell of a job of it. She had convinced herself that Mello would be fine without her around, that he had been old enough to cope with it. He hadn't bee. He was _still_ slightly effected by her absence. She gulped back a lump in her throat and spoke evenly. "Then tell him," she said.

"Alpha," Roger said wearily, with another sigh, "_listen_ to me, and _try_ to understand what I am telling you. Mello is close enough to normal now that a change this drastic would ruin his current progress. What is there to say that he wouldn't run away from the orphanage to search for you?"

"He wouldn't," she whispered.

"He _would_. Mello is now the same age you were when you arrived here, and it is as though Wammy's is living through a repeat of you. The only difference with Mello is that his mentor is still alive and he has no one looking up to hi as he did to you. While caring for him may have been the perfect way to help you redeem yourself, I don't believe it was as much of a help to Mello."

"I know that." She still couldn't bring her voice above a whisper. "Don't rub it in. I've corrupted him and it's completely irreversible now. But he _needs_ to know this. He wouldn't run away if you let me talk to him and I told him not to."

"Would you have run off if you found out your brother was alive?"

Alpha silently cursed Karen for telling Roger about the contents of her notebook all those years ago. "That's different," she said. That was a lie. It was so similar that it was almost scary. "I know he wouldn't."

"He would. You're lying to yourself if you truly believe he wouldn't. It is best if he continues to wonder. He is optimistic – he does not believe you are dead, and he is strongly confident that he will see you again. However, if it was confirmed for him that you are alive, he would almost definitely leave to track you down."

"He needs to know."

"It's better that he doesn't."

Alpha's hands were clenched – a nasty surge of static show through the phone and she quickly loosened her grip upon it. "He _needs_ to."

"You're being very stubborn about this. At least tell me _why_ you believe that he –"

"Because I need him to know! It's selfish, yeah, but no one ever accused me of being noble, did they? I feel like shit for leaving – it felt like I was abandoning my own child, and now I find out he still hasn't gotten over it entirely – I just need him to know. Wondering every day will do him no good whatsoever."

"I'm not going to tell him."

"Dammit, Roger! I – you –" She made a frustrated noise and gripped the phone too tightly again. "Fuck this, I'm going."

"Alpha –"

"What?" she snapped.

"May I at least ask your reasoning for leaving on such short notice four years ago?"

"No."

She dropped the phone back onto its receiver at this and stood up to stalk off to the bedroom. When she got there, she slammed the door behind her, chest heaving in anger. Even halfway across the world, four years later, Roger _still_ pissed her off like no other entity could have managed.

"_Whoa, who pissed in your cheerios?"_

All right, perhaps like no other entity besides the one floating leisurely over her bed with an apple could have. "Roger," she growled at him. Akino bit the core of his apple in half.

"_Ah. Right."_ He then swallowed the remaining half. _"Then goodbye."_

"You're actually going to let me seethe in peace?" Alpha's anger faded into curiosity for a moment.

"_Yep. Anyone who was ever at that hellhole at the same time you were knew your views on Roger. I'd rather not have to listen to that, go talk to your notebook or something. I'll be back later."_

"Off to wreak havoc and cause mayhem, of course," Alpha said as he ducked through the wall again, leaving her alone with her thoughts. L would almost definitely steer clear of her for the rest of the night. Watari was… somewhere. That man has one hell of a knack for disappearing. The investigation team wouldn't be back until tomorrow – hopefully she would be able to calm herself down by then. Hopefully. She shook her head and moved over to her bed. She fell onto her back upon it, grabbed her notebook, and stuffed it under the pillow. She would have to write later, when she could hold a pen without her hands shaking.


	5. Second Chance

_... This is excessively discouraging. I just replied to all of the reviews and lost it because firefox crashed on me! Dx Epic fail, anyone? Ithink yes._

_I really don't want to try that again D'x -grumbles about stupid computer-_

_On a happier note, hey, new chapter! :D_

_And sooooo many reviews! I love you guys so much! :'D -glomps you all-_

_So without further ado, here be yer chapter!_

_**Dicso-clam**: I don't own Death Note. At all._

_**Warnings**:... well, same as any other chapter, really._

_**Quote!**:  
If L couldn't trust his only true friend, then he wasn't sure there was anyone he could trust._

* * *

_I despise Rabbit. The bastard had better be happy I __**don't**__ have that death note on me. I'd power ranger his name outa my ass and write it in that notebook faster than you can say shinigami._

_He refuses to tell Minime that I'm even alive. And I lied to myself, Ant. I did one hell of a fucking job of lying to myself. You know how I said I thought he would be all right if he was at least ten before I left? I was wrong. I think that my sticking around for that long affected him worse in the long run. The entire time I was there, I only used him as a crutch. My only purpose was to redeem myself, not to help Minime. I've corrupted him._

_You know, maybe it's better that he doesn't know. It's like Rabbit said, he would probably come after me if he did know. And the last thing he needs to do is run away. If he can beat out the sheep, then he'll be next in line to be the Llama in his age group. If Llama dies now, it would be me, but he isn't going to die now. Don't ask me how I know, you damn notebook. Anyway. I know he won't die. With all the cases he's solved in the past, even if this one is a bit more difficult, he'll get it._

_Then again, if he becomes a duck, I might also have to take over._

_All right, all right, I'll stop referencing internet songs…._

_But in all seriousness, again. I know it's better for him this way. I just really don't want to admit it. It won't make me happy – it won't make Minime very pleased either – but things in life than make people happy aren't always the right thing. In fact, it seems they're hardly ever the right thing._

_I didn't think I would be able to write that tonight…. I'm sure you notice my handwriting, so even if someone reads __this__ page, they won't understand a word of it. It's too sloppy. My hands were shaking too much._

_I doubt I'll sleep, but I guess I should probably give it a shot. So, I bid thee adieu, Ant._

* * *

Alpha closed her notebook and once again stuffed it under her pillow. She rolled over onto her back to stare up at the white pattern of dots and bumps along the ceiling, trying hard to blank out her mind. Her boots were off now, lying on the floor next to the bed and beside her messenger bag, but she still wore her clothes from the day. It was how she normally fell asleep, especially during her past few years spent tracking down L. She would normally be too tired by the end of every day to change into anything more comfortable, would fall asleep in one hotel room and then another the next night. The schedule had been haphazard. Despite the fact that they were going to be required to switch hotels once every week or every other week, this still offered more stability than her previous lifestyle.

If L had any idea what she had done to locate him, he probably would have had her thrown in prison.

In Britain, after leaving Wammy's, she found herself back in Yorkshire and stayed with a member of the gang she had once been a part of, one who had managed to break out of the low security prison he had been placed in. She kept tabs on L from there, but it was difficult. Even with her expertise in hacking, it wasn't long at all before she realized she would need to be close to him if she was going to keep up with him. That proved difficult, but she managed. It was easier for her than it might have been for some. Friends of friends of friends (though she considered no members of that gang friends anymore, it was really the only way to look at it) – there were enough connections in the underground that she could get help getting across countries.

But no one ever did anything for free. They would get her from place to place kindly enough, and they would help her, but only if she would help them. Wammy's had been her refuge from all of this, and it seemed even more wrong to her than it had before, after she left Wammy's. There were shootouts, there were scams to be run, there were break-ins, robberies. She made so many narrow escapes, and it still amazed her even now that she didn't have her very own dingy little prison cell.

The hardest case for her to find anything out about had been the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases. L had guarded that one the most carefully of any of them, and it was for one sole reason. If information on the case was leaked – if information on the suspect himself was leaked – then information about his own past would also be leaked. B was his past as much as he was Alpha's. Similarly in this case, Alpha was L's past as much as B had been his. She was a nuisance, and she could see that, but if L was going to live through this one, then he needed help.

The hardest thing had been breaking into L's own files that time, during the BB Murders. It had been even harder than accessing the FBI's systems to get information on Misora Naomi. L had been very careful then. Now, during the Kira case, he was being even more protected. For any information about him to leak would be terrible. It would mean more than just exposure of the Wammy's House and its residents. It would mean the death of the world's greatest detective, the trump card for the police. It would mean that herself or Mello or Near would have to take on the name of L. Alpha couldn't handle it, and Mello and Near were just too young for it. It was true that L started… well, being L, when he was sixteen, but Mello was thirteen, Near only eleven. They weren't even done with their schooling yet.

And Mello was just as likely to act irrationally if L died as he would be if he was to find out that Alpha was alive and well, working on the Kira investigation.

She had to agree with Roger there. If Mello was as much like Alpha as he said, then his coming to find her would be problematic. Alpha had resorted to criminal activity to find L. She didn't like the idea of Mello getting involved in gang activity to do _anything_. She also couldn't imagine it for anything, but if Roger was right, then it was possible.

And worst of all, it was her fault.

Alpha groaned as she reminded herself of this for the hundredth time and rolled over onto her stomach. She put a pillow over her head to try to suffocate all of those thoughts to death, all the memories she wanted to be rid of, but it was to no avail. Her grip slackened on the pillow and she simply stared at the white sheets her face was pressed against, glaring with a hatred she wouldn't have been able to explain in words.

With a heavy sigh, she lifted the pillow and rolled back over to lie on her back. Sleep was definitely going to be evasive of her tonight. All she would have to do would be to stare at the ceiling and wish that sleep would come find her.

"_Back. Where the hell'd my apples go?"_ Alpha closed her eyes in annoyance and pointed to the nightstand at the other side of the bed. _"Oh."_

There was a barely audible _whoosh_ing sound as Akino flew overhead. A moment later, a loud _crunch!_ issued from next to the bed.

"'S long as you're over there, mind grabbing chocolate bar out of my bag for me?"

"_I'm not your slave."_

"I _could_ cut off your apple supply."

"_And I __**could**__ kill your friend out there."_ Alpha opened her eyes to glare over that the Shinigami, who was just swallowing the core of the apple whole and grabbing another. _"I'm just stating facts, here. You already knew that. It'd be his damn fault for sticking me in prison with that crazy bastard."_

"He didn't know he was sticking you in prison," Alpha pointed out. "Just B, and he _needed_ to be locked up somewhere. Maximum security prison or insane asylum, either one."

"_Still. I was stuck in there with the bastard."_

"He's _dead_ now. You'd still be stuck with him if he hadn't been convicted in the first place."

"_Yeah, but if the son of a bitch out there had things his way, B would still be in there and not dead. Because Kira's a criminal or some shit, I don't know. Honestly, I'd like to thank the guy for __**that**__."_

"You're not looking at the downside of things." Akino raised his eyebrow. "Now you're stuck with me."

He shrugged. _"You're not half as bad as Birthday Boy was."_

"And I'm bad about _my_ nicknames."

"_Seriously, Llama?"_

"Let's not start this discussion again."

"_I can if I want to,"_ he said with a shrug. _"I'm a Shinigami, I can do what I want. You can't cut off my apple supply because I can just swoop into a store, grab a few apples, and all the people there'll see is a few apples flying away. It'd scare the shit out of 'em, but that would be funny anyway. And I could also fly through a couple walls here and eat my apple out __**there**__ right in front of the insomniac."_

"Which would be bad, considering the message Kira left him in a few letters from convicts before they died…"

"_Oh?"_

"Read left to right instead of up and down – there was three of them – they read, 'L, do you know reapers only eat apples?' And you know, if you _can_ do all of this, then I'm wondering," Alpha said slowly, "why don't you?" Challenging a Shinigami – especially one like Akino – probably wasn't a good idea, but she was in a sour enough mood to do it solely out of spite.

Akino, however, only shrugged and took another bite of his apple. _"I'unno. The Kira case is interesting. If I get you kicked off of it, that means I'll be getting myself kicked out."_

"Then you could kill me and come back. You're a Shinigami, aren't you? You can kill anyone you want."

He raised his eyebrow. _"Feeling suicidal? I really don't need to kill anyone anymore unless I really __**want**__ to, I just found that out. I stopped by the Shinigami realm while I was out. I'm now a level two shinigami and I've got a good ten thousand years built up. It's not like I did that in a few years – I've been around for a while,"_ he explained at the shocked look on Alpha's face. _"In human years… eh, not exactly sure. Shinigami have been around for as long as humans have been around. I've been around for that long. It was harder to survive back then since there were so few of them to begin with, so we were all a lot more proactive. Now that there's so many of you, we can just pick out who we want to when we need to and no one does anything anymore. I usually go for younger humans; it builds up the years faster since they usually have a lot longer left to live."_

"How young?"

"_Usually teenagers."_ He laughed._ "The leading cause of teenage car accidents isn't actually alcohol."_ What scared Alpha more than anything was that this seemed to genuinely amuse the Shinigami. _"And anyway, besides that, I already said you're a major improvement from that B kid – damn near anyone would be – so you're all right unless you piss me off. Then I'd be glad to kill you or you insomniac friend out there. And be creative about it. Creative deaths are more fun."_

Alpha flinched slightly and resolved not to piss off any Shinigami anytime soon. "Right. Guess I'll keep getting you apples, then," she said. "Now can I please have my chocolate?"

With much eye rolling, Akino picked up her bag and tossed it at her. She caught it before it could land on her face, pulled a chocolate bar out of its front pocket, and tossed it back at Akino. The fact that it sailed through him as though he wasn't there didn't satisfy her in the least bit. He gave a snort of laughter at the pitiful attempt and finished his apple without saying anything.

Not until five minutes later, at least. That was around the time when he started complaining about being bored. Alpha put a pillow over her head. It didn't do any good.

"Then go to sleep or something!" she said in exasperation as he complained, her voice muffled by the pillow.

"_Shinigami don't need sleep."_

"Oh, lucky _me_. Go start another war or something, I don't give a damn."

"_I already tried __**that**__. It didn't work."_ Alpha decided it would be better not to ask for details.

"Do something good for a change. Find some overpopulated third world nation and kill off half of them so it's not overpopulated anymore."

"_But I don't like killing to better humanity,"_ he complained. _"My name is not Kira. Or __**Duck**__, for that matter."_

Alpha took the pillow off of her head and threw it at the Shinigami as she sat up. "Go away," she said in annoyance. "What could you _possibly_ be gaining by bothering me all night?"

He shrugged. _"It's more entertaining than doing nothing. I don't need to kill anyone right now. The King told me he might have to put out limits if I don't 'learn to control myself,'"_ he added in annoyance. _"Old bastard sits around being lazy all day like the rest of the washed up idiots in my world and he thinks he's got a right to push me around… at least I'm getting actual work done, what the hell is he doing?"_

"He has a point. If you kill so much that the world runs out of humans, then all the Shinigami are going to die, too." Akino scoffed in response. "It's true." He scoffed again. Alpha rolled her eyes and lay back down, turning her back to the Shinigami. "I'm not going to try to reason with you if you're going to act like a baby about it."

Another scoff came, and Alpha grabbed the pillow from the other side of the bed and covered her head with it. She might have to sleep with a pillow over her head tonight—actually, she might have to start sleeping with a pillow over her head every night. "Ear plugs," she mumbled to herself. "Need to invest in earpl—"

She quieted when she heard the door to the bedroom open quietly. Under the pillow, she gave a heavy sigh. "Are you ever going to learn to knock?"

After a rather long silence—Alpha imagined it felt longer than it actually was—she heard L's voice speak up. "Roger says he'll tell Mello if you want him to." Alpha sat up so quickly that she knocked the remaining pillow onto the floor. "I just talked to him."

"How did you convince him?" she asked quietly.

"I told him he made you cry and he was apparently surprised that you have the ability to do so and felt bad."

Alpha's eyebrows furrowed. "You lied?" she asked slowly. "Why would you—?"

He shook his head slowly. "I didn't lie, I opened the door earlier and you were crying, then I went back out there to call Roger and ask what was going on." Alpha blinked slowly at him.

"I…" She looked over her shoulder at where her face had been against the bed—she could see the shape of her eyes in a mix of eye shadow and eyeliner imprinted onto the bed, surrounded wet spots from what were doubtlessly tears. "Okay, so maybe I was," she said uncertainly, looking back at L as she continued, "but you didn't have to tell him that." L blinked owlishly in response, and Alpha gave a sigh and lay back down. "You're a hopeless case, Llama," she said. She didn't even have to look up to know that he was blinking in that confused manner of his again.

"I am?" Alpha nodded. "Why…?"

"Probably because of that bloody orphanage," she said. "Anyone raised there automatically becomes a hopeless case." She tucked her hands behind her head. "Me more so than anyone else, I think, but I was hopeless before I ever got there." With another sigh, she sat up and stood from the bed. "I'll call Roger back myself." L watched her walk past him and out the door.

"Are you sure?" she heard him ask once she was a few steps away from him. She waved a hand dismissively behind her. L bit his thumbnail and stared after her. It wasn't as though Alpha had ever really made much sense, so he supposed he shouldn't expect any different from her now. Always either cryptic or sarcastic or an even stranger combination of the two, she didn't seem to have changed a bit over the past few years. He shook his head before glancing back into the room once more and starting down the hall.

Something caused him to stop, however, and back up to look back in, to see if—and he had seen it, a large bowl of apples sitting on a nightstand. He blinked at it for a moment, unable to keep that strange, cryptic hint from Kira's prison-bound victims from coming to his mind. _L, do you know shinigami only eat apples?_ It was ridiculous to think such a thing, but it was….

Strange. He looked down the hall again. The odds that Alpha, of all people, was Kira were slim to none… or did he only think that because they were friends?

No. No, no, no. The chance was at zero percent—less than zero percent. Particularly given her past. She knew that not every criminal did what they did because they wanted to, knew that some were forced into the things they did if they wanted to live—she knew that not all of them deserved death without a trial. Didn't she?

He looked back into the room again, and his eyes drifted over to the notebook laying on her bed, the old spiral notebook she had stolen from her therapist before leaving Wammy's. Any answer to any question he had, it would be in there, in that notebook. Marcus Antonius the psychodiary. Ant probably held nearly as many secrets as Wammy's House itself by this point.

Information about her time there and before, so there would be plenty of information on actual residents at the place, including himself. It would tell of exactly where she had been for the past four years, how she had kept such close pegs on him without him even knowing. There would be information on the Kira case now, information that made that notebook such a top secret item that L wasn't sure Alpha could protect it solely by herself—leaving it out in the open like that, just asking for anyone who happened to wander into the room to read it.

But somehow more important than anything, it would detail why she left, give the details that she wouldn't even tell Mello then, wouldn't tell L now.

The curiosity itself was enough to kill him.

With a deep breath, keeping his eye on the notebook, he continued down the hall, turning his head to the floor only when that spiral-bound stack of paper was out of his sight. It was imperative that everyone working on this case trust each other, but they all undoubtedly had their secrets. If L couldn't trust his only true friend, then he wasn't sure there was anyone he could trust.

* * *

_-sadface- Poor L. My cliffhangers even kill me sometimes._

_Reviews are muchly appreciated, and your word of the day is "outswagger." It was the first word that came up on a random word generator and it made me rofl a bit, so yeah._

_Review if you have the time, constructive criticism appreciated, flames amuse the heck of me, and so on and so forth.  
_


	6. Dead or Alive

_So... remember how I said there wouldn't be much Matt and Mello in this story...?_

_Well, I totally lied. Because Mello's totally in this chapter. Like, a lot._

_And this chapter made meh sad. So I'll probably be writing another Death Note Owner's Guide and Maintenance Manual installment to make myself feel better soon._

_Review reply:  
_

_Shibo26: Thanks for the review n.n Haaa the llama song is win. I just couldn't resist the chance to use it both against L and Kira. L because I enjoy picking on him and Lighto because he's just such a $&! n.n' yeah... Anyway. I think they'd like some apple juices :3 One in particular I've tried, called Simply Apple, tastes like an apple in a bottle. I'd love to see a Shinigami's reaction to it._

_**Discoclammer**: I no owns, as much as I'd like to._

_**Warnings**: There are indeed profanities. And Roger, who's an asshole in general._

_**Quick Quote**:_  
_Mello was about to offer a smart aleck remark—just to let Roger know, yes, he was taking all of this in, and no, he didn't give a damn about any of it—when the phone rang on Roger's desk. This wouldn't have been quite so odd if not for the fact that the old man went slightly pale and gave the phone a look of great reproach, letting it ring a few times before picking it up._

* * *

Roger picked up his glasses from his desk with a heavy sigh and put them on to stare at the fourteen-year-old in his office rather wearily. He stared back, looking bored, and there was no doubt as to why. It seemed Mello spent as much time in this office as Roger himself did half the time—in trouble more often than any other child at the orphanage, taking over the title of chief spreader of destruction and mayhem. This evening wasn't at all going how Roger had planned it. He had simply _planned_ to look through files on new potential residents of Wammy's and sip on tea before heading off to sleep, but obviously _they_ had other plans for him.

First, there was the call from Watari.

_Alpha's alive._

_How do you know that?_

_Because she's here._

… _Oh. Yes. Of course she is._

In his mind, his calm disposition hadn't been quite so evident. He supposed he was relieved to hear that she was alive, but _oh_ how peaceful it had been around here with her gone! And even more in his own head knowing that he didn't have to worry about her antics anymore. The place for an ex-gang member was not an orphanage of this prestige; it was a prison, a juvenile detention center. Roger was never quite sure himself why Watari had thought it such a good idea to take her in, IQ test or not, intelligent or not. Trouble was in her nature by the time she had gotten herself arrested with the rest of that gang, and it was all she had to give to this place.

And now Mello, who otherwise would have grown up looking up to a rather more positive role model—though L was a bit odd in his own respects, _anything_ had to be better than _her_—had taken her place. The resident smart mouth, wreaker of havoc, chocoholic blond fourteen-year-old that Alpha had once been had somehow been reborn into Mello.

Now, this havoc-wreaking fourteen-year-old was sitting in his office, chocolate bar hanging from his mouth, looking utterly bored. Alpha stood a chance of calling back at any given moment. Despite the nine hour time difference between England and Japan, the odds that she was asleep were slim, and the odds that she would call while it was three o'clock in the morning where she was over a matter she considered so important as this were very elevated. The odds that she would call while Mello was actually here in his office, given the way things were going this evening already, were also probably very high.

Mello just had to pick that precise moment to decide to bully Near over grades on last week's Pre-Calculus test. Roger sighed once again and peered over his glasses at Mello.

"Are we going to have to create a solitary confinement and lock you in it to start keeping you in line?" Roger asked. "I would hate to make this place seem like a prison, but you're really pushing your luck, Mello."

_Lecture time, wonderful…_

Over the past few years, Mello had practically turned ignoring Roger into an art form, thinking about anything but where he was or what he was doing while caught in the middle of one of his lectures. So he had walked past Near while the sheepy bastard was getting all of his usual praises and dumped half a glass of soda over his head. Big _deal_. It wasn't like he hadn't done worse things around the orphanage—it wasn't like hadn't done worse even just to Near in general. Yet, somehow, it seemed he always got the longest lectures and the worst scolding for bothering Near, like just because the sheep was number one he deserved to be tread around like he was an highly breakable and rare artifact. If anything, Mello was doing him some good. Without him around, the kid would end up absorbing all of the praises and thinking far too highly of his own abilities—that would be a dangerous thing if he ever had to take over for L.

Not that he would have to, of course. Not for a long time. L wasn't going to let himself be defeated by some schizophrenic asshole having delusions of divinity and thinking he was entitled to judge the bad people of the world. He simply _wasn't_, end of story.

Mello was about to offer a smart aleck remark—just to let Roger know, yes, he was taking all of this in, and no, he didn't give a damn about any of it—when the phone rang on Roger's desk. This wouldn't have been quite so odd if not for the fact that the old man went slightly pale and gave the phone a look of great reproach, letting it ring a few times before picking it up.

Roger sighed. It looked like the chances Mello would run off tonight were quite high.

"Yes?" he said into the receiver.

"Hello again." Roger shut his eyes.

"Shall I or shall you?" he asked Alpha.

There was a silence on the other end of the line before Alpha replied, her voice hardly more than a whisper. "Is… he there right now?"

"Yes," he replied, eyes landing on a mildly puzzled-looking Mello. "So?"

He heard a nervous gulp on the other end of the line. "Don't tell him anything." The old man's eyebrows shot up—was this really Alpha speaking? "Please don't tell him."

This was… a rather sudden change of heart, especially after the report he had been given from L earlier. It was strange. Roger glanced down at the receiver, then back at Mello. He held his hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver and spoke to Mello. "Mello, please wait outside for a moment."

The fourteen-year-old raised an eyebrow. "Why should I?" he asked. "Too important for them to call back? Is it L—?"

"Mello," Roger interrupted, raising his voice. "Outside. It shouldn't be more than a few minutes."

With a scoff, Mello turned and walked to the door, glancing back at the caretaker as he closed it behind him. Anything Roger was this secretive about was nearly always interesting. It was normally a new kid coming to the orphanage or something about L's cases. He had learned this before he even hit ten. So, crouching down, he put his ear to the crack between the doorway and the door itself. It wasn't as though it was going to be information he would ever feel the need to bring up again, so no harm, no foul. Then again, it might turn out to be something he can use against Roger as blackmail. That would be quite useful, and it was generally this hope that made him listen.

"… your mind so suddenly?" he heard Roger saying. "Well, after the call I received around thirty minutes ago, I wouldn't have thought that—" He paused for a moment, and then scoffed. "Oh, really? You expect me to believe that? What reason would he _have_ to lie about it? You should be grateful he was concerned enough to— All right, all right, calm down. So what should I…?"

There was silence for a long moment—Mello thought that maybe Roger had hung the phone up and was halfway considering knocking on the door when Roger replied, "You can't possibly be serious. That would have a worse effect than telling him—No. _No_, you hear me? I'm not—no, you're not, now _you're_ being totally irrational. Listen, Alph—All right, fine, I will! Just stop making threats like that, that's just completely ridiculous." Roger sighed. "Yes, I suppose it will," he said resignedly. "No, no, I agree with _that_, but it still seems like a bad idea. Fine, fine, do whatever you please… yes. Good night."

There was the easily recognizable sound of Roger slamming the phone receiver down after a conversation that hadn't gone in the direction he had hoped or expected it would.

For once, though, the fourteen-year-old chocoholic had heard something important. He was sure of it, it wasn't just false hopes this time, it was real. There was no denying it. There just couldn't have been. That was how Roger always sounded when he was reprimanding someone, how he had sounded through that entire conversation. This wasn't just something that hadn't gone right in the Kira case that they had called to report to Roger about. This was bigger than that. He had even heard Roger nearly _say_ it once before he was interrupted by the person at the other end.

_Alpha_.

"Mello, you can come back—" Mello was already swinging the door open at this point in Roger's sentence. Roger blinked. "… Back in," he finished ineffectively.

"Who was that?" Mello asked immediately.

Roger sighed, looking down at the hardwood desk in front of his chair. "Mello, come back in and close the door."

"Answer my question—"

"I will," Roger said, "as soon as you shut the door and come over here." Roger could see the blonde's fists clench for a moment and loosen before he kicked the door shut behind him. He stood totally still, looking straight at Roger. "Over here," Roger repeated. "I'd prefer this didn't get out to many people." Mello moved swiftly across the room and stopped at the desk, for once not saying a word. There was only one possible thing. "I get a feeling you were listening at the door," Roger said, "and have an idea of what I'm about to tell you."

Mello nodded.

'_I still think this is a terrible idea…' _Roger thought, sighing quietly.

"Mello," he said, looking at the boy, "that was L. We, as well as Watari, have been discussing how to handle the… er… _situation_ we currently have at hand." Mello only blinked. Roger couldn't help but wonder if he had guessed what he was about to be told, or had guessed the exact opposite.

Mello waited for Roger to get to the point and confirm what he had been saying for the past for years, that—

"Mello… Alpha's dead."

And quite suddenly, the hope and anticipation floated off, much the same way a balloon does when a child lets it accidentally slip through their fingers. Instead, a lead weight landed quite forcibly on the fourteen-year-old's chest. "Sh—she…?"

"I can understand how you're feeling, Mello," Roger said—he noticed Mello's fists clench again.

"No…"

"I know how much she meant to you."

Now he was shaking and gripping the edge of the desk. Roger had a feeling that half of the things on his desk at that moment weren't going to survive for more than fifteen minutes longer. New lamp, new phone… perhaps even a new desk. Mello was not a force to be taken lightly when angered, and underestimating him could be potentially dangerous. Right now, he might not have been angry, but he was progressing towards anger at a rapid pace.

No… right now, he was absolutely crushed. After four years, after she said they would meet again, she went and _died_? _Why_? Why couldn't she have just come back before then? B was gone, she could have come back at any time, but now she was… she was gone. There was no chance of ever seeing her again. And even more, how? That was something he had to know. Alpha… wasn't supposed to die, not yet. There was no way she could have, none.

"How?" he asked quietly, not looking up from the desk.

Roger sighed. "She was arrested in Japan." Mello looked up sharply. "She was attempting to locate L, apparently wanted to help with the Kira case. Why she didn't just come back here, I can't understand, but she didn't. The methods she had to use to locate him weren't… exactly within the law, and she got caught."

"And?" Mello's fingernails scraped the desk as he clenched it harder yet. Somehow, he knew the answer already.

"She had a heart attack," Roger said. "No doubt Kira's work."

The fourteen-year-old's eyes closed tightly. This… it wasn't right. Something just seemed off, so entirely off. As convincing as it was, as it would have been to anyone else, Mello felt like Roger was lying outright to him. What reason would he have to do something like that?

It was because he was a stupid old bastard—that was all. Alpha _was_ alive and he didn't want Mello to know because he thought it would distract him. Roger was preoccupied on molding the children in this orphanage into perfect copies of L. And as much as he had liked Watari while he was there, that was Watari's focus as well. This place was nothing more than a farm, where they were the crops all genetically engineered to be exactly the same, and Watari and Roger—they were the evil scientists in charge of the whole operation, tweaking and altering them all to be the same as L. They had failed three times already, with A, B, and Alpha. Now Mello and Near were their last hopes, and they weren't going to let go of it no matter what.

Even if it meant lying and crushing their hopes of happiness, what had to be done would be done.

Mello looked up at Roger, eyes aflame with rage. Roger kept himself looking nonplussed, and merely raised an eyebrow curiously. The fourteen-year-old swallowed back the rage that was threatening to boil over and breathed as evenly as he could. "You're lying… she can't be dead." Even he realized how feeble this argument sounded when it came out of his mouth. This was bad.

"I'm really very sorry, Mello—"

"Don't _lie_!" Mello yelled, removing his hand from the edge of the desk only to slam his fist down on it. Roger did flinch slightly at this. "She's not dead, it—it was her you were talking to on the phone, _not_ L!"

Roger shook his head, still unperturbed. If Mello was going to have an outburst, he was going to have an outburst. This was exactly what Alpha had instructed him to tell the boy, that she was dead, killed by Kira. He wasn't sure if she had taken into account exactly how Mello would react, but…

"Admit it," Mello said, seething. Eyes wide, he continued, "You're just doing this because you think she's a distraction! She's alive and you don't want me to know it because you think she'd fuck up all your attempts at turning me into a copy of L," and his voice was gradually rising now, "you don't want any of us to have a free will and you thought you could destroy mine by saying she's dead! I'm not bloody believing it you stupid old prick!"

He slammed his fist down on the desk again, and at the exact moment he did, as though summoning it to do so, the phone rang. There was silence for a few rings, in which Roger and Mello both looked at it—Mello was quicker to act, snatching it up just as Roger had started to reach for it, still gripping the wooden desk with one hand hard enough to bruise his palm.

"Alpha?" he said into the receiver, his voice hysterical and desperate at this point—Mello himself even took note of this, but he didn't care right now. All that mattered now was proving that Roger was a lying asshole, that Alpha _was_ alive and—

"Mello," L's voice said, calmly. Heart sinking as though weighed down by a lead anvil, Mello collapsed heavily to his knees, his hand slackening its grip on the desk. "Have you talked to Roger about this yet?"

"He's lying…"

"She's dead, Mello." His grip tightened on the phone. "It's no use trying to accuse anyone of lying."

Gritting his teeth together and shutting his eyes tightly, his voice shook as he replied, "No… don't say she's… sh-she's not, I know she's not, she promised she'd come back…" He laid his forehead against the front of the desk. "She can't be…"

"Mello—"

"She _isn't dead_! She's there right now, I was listening through the door while she was talking to this old bastard who's trying to tell me it's you he was talking to. His tone is different than that when he's talking to you, he _sounded_ like he was talking to… like it was…. Look," he interrupted himself, "I know it sounds ridiculous, but you can tell the difference. You can!"

"He was speaking to me like that," L said, "because he thought telling you the truth would cause you to react like this."

"Kira," Mello said quietly, his last possible hope, "needs a name and a face to kill. He couldn't have gotten _her_ name, he can't get _anyone's_ name who's lived here, no one can..."

He heard L sigh at the other end of the line. "It's only speculated that he needs a name. There's still a chance that he only needs a face."

Shaking, Mello nodded, half-forgetting he was only talking to L on the phone for a moment. "Y… yeah," he said quietly. He hung his head. "Yeah…"

"Could you please hand the phone to Roger?"

Mello was quiet for a moment, motionless. "L…" he said quietly.

"Yes?"

"If you… if Kira… if you don't catch him," Mello said, hand tightening on the receiver, "then I swear I will. And I'll kill him."

"Mello—" The rest of L's sentence was cut short when Mello dropped the telephone receiver on top of Roger's desk, stood from his spot on the floor, and walked to the door, keeping his eyes on his feet. Roger picked up the receiver slowly, watching Mello leave.

"Do you think he'll…"

"He'll be fine," L replied to Roger. "Alpha knows him better than any of us. Just trust her judgment. Mello's too much like her to do anything drastic at this point."

"Yes, I… suppose he is," Roger agreed uncertainly. "You probably need to work on the case now. I'll let you go."

"Just keep an eye on Mello," L said. "Make sure he doesn't try sneaking to Japan in the middle of the night."

"I'll be sure to."

* * *

As he ended his brief conversation with Roger, L looked back at the sofa Alpha was sitting in the corner of, head on her knees and arms wrapped around her legs. She looked up at the sound of the phone being hung up. "D… do you think he'll be all right?" she asked quietly. L nodded shortly. She looked back down at her knees. "I couldn't tell him. Roger was right, he would've just run off to come find me and gotten into God knows what sort of trouble. But since he was in the office… I'm the one who taught him about listening outside doors, so _I_ at least knew sending him out was hardly going to do any good."

"He knew you were the one Roger was talking to," L confirmed, sitting in his regular fashion in an armchair. Alpha nodded.

"I knew he'd figure it out," she said. She smirked half-heartedly. "It was Roger's tone, wasn't it?" L nodded again. "He always sounds like he's scolding me when he talks to me. It's a dead giveaway." She glanced at L again. "Are you sure he'll be—"

"He'll be fine," L said. Alpha looked back down at her knees, sighing. "His interest in the Kira case has certainly increased thanks to this. He more or less said that if I don't manage to catch Kira, he'll hunt Kia down and kill him himself."

"It'll all be better once this Kira asshole gets caught," she said quietly, laying her head back down on her knees. "Mello'll probably hate me when he finds out I'm behind this, but…" Shaking her head, she continued, "At least I might get to see him again." She nodded. "It was for the best. This way he won't do anything irrational."

Alpha had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time she tried to reassure herself about the situation. At this point, she wasn't sure what was right or wrong anymore.

* * *

_And that's that. Yeah, looks like I'm getting into torturing canon characters on top of my OCs. Woohoo._

_Quite T-T-ful after writing that, so yeah. Gonna grab a soda, wake myself up, and work on writing something slightly more cheerful.  
_


	7. Greenish Grievances

_Long absence is long... :D?_

_-is pelted with apples-_

_Okay, sorry for being gone so long. Real life and other chaotic things, you know. I don't have much of a precise excuse because nothing is very precise on my end these days, but here's a new chapter anyway._

_Review replies?_

_aflaskj.: Nah, the meeting with Kira hasn't been canceled at all. And no, she definitely isn't, except with Ant xP _

_MochaLuLu: Heh, thanks xD Cute was part of what I was going for. I always pictured anything to do with kid-Mello as cute. Devious and disastrous, but still cute._

_Liah Cauthon: Yay chapter times again? :3_

_Ganta: Mmm, I'm still deciding exactly **when** he's going to find out. May not actually be for a while yet... but I certainly can't wait to write it. I sort of covered it in one of the epilogues in Mellow Out, but I may remove it from there and/or rewrite that epilogue to end this fic with. Not sure._

_VoidOfDoomAndCupcakes: To be honest... I'm not even sure. If it ever turns into one, it won't be for a while yet. As of right now, Alpha definitely doesn't look at L as anything but a friend, and L doesn't look at Alpha as anything else either. So... I'm really not sure._

_zzzDeath2Societyzzz: Aaah, I doubt he will. I don't think I'm going to have him run away until he does in the manga/anime, at fourteen and off to America. But thanks so much, I really appreciate the compliment x3 I like to think that my writing is at least average, but my self esteem makes me doubt it a lot more often than natural; so it's always awesome to know that my efforts are appreciated by others._

_Shi-chan: Thanks! Hehe, I've always grinned stupidly when thinking of llamas, but that's just me. _

_Wolf and Leopard: Er... well, it wasn't exactly soon, but I did update! And thanks! I tend to put a lot of effort into characterization/character development and I love knowing my work is appreciated. -head explodes from sudden swelling of pride-_

_randomgirl: Updated~! And thanks! And actually... I've got more than one Death Note OC story. =P This one and The King's Note rewrite are the only ones I'm remotely keeping up with at the moment, but yeah. _

_And now story stuff._

_**Disclaimer**: I don't own Death Note. I just don't. Stop patronizing me about it!  
**Warnings**: Er... :3?  
**OMGWTFBBQuote :D**_  
Alpha gave a nervous laugh. "And to think I freaked when I first saw Akino…"

"_Well as far as Shinigami go, I'd say I'm pretty damn sexy._" Alpha gave an annoyed sigh and tossed Akino a _shut-up-you-_idiot glare. The Shinigami snickered, and Alpha rolled her eyes.

"All right, _egogami_."

* * *

_—__—__—__—__—__—__—__—_  
_So I know I haven't written anything in a little while, nearly a week, but… things have been strange lately. Minime thinks I'm dead. I had Rabbit and Llama convince him of it, and I've been worried sick about him for the past few days now. I hope he doesn't do anything…_

_Look at me, I can't even bring myself to think it._

_I don't think he will, though. If Llama's telling the truth, Minime's too much like me. I didn't kill myself after what happened to my family, I sought revenge. But thinking about that, there might still be a chance of Minime running off and coming here to hunt that stupid Duck, of putting himself in danger. I don't want him to be in danger, that's the last thing I want, but either way there's still a chance of him running off. I thought this would be the better option, but now, thinking about it…. Couldn't I have convinced him to stay at the orphanage if he knew I was alive?_

_God, this is a mess. Don't do anything stupid, Minime, please…_

_Right now, I'm sitting here on a bench on the side of the road waiting for a Duck to come quacking my way. No doubt looking to see who's side I'm on and kill me if it's not his. But… I could be a spy. I could pretend I'm on his side, even though I wouldn't be of much use since I don't have my—THE notebook with me, not mine, it's NOT mine. It's not even in this country._

_Don't worry, Ant, you're the only notebook for me! Even if you don't have any special powers. I don't think you do, anyway. Though I'm not denying any potential special powers you might have._

_Wait, could it be—why, I think it is! With an apple bobbing along behind his head and eating itself, too. Naturally. And Akino's eating one as well, so I guess I'll be pretty identifiable. Gotta get going now, buddy. I'll let you know how this turns out, if I live long enough to let you.  
__—__—__—__—__—__—__—__—_

Alpha closed the notebook and stood, stuffing it back into her messenger bag at her side, heart thumping in her chest so hard that she was sure passersby would be able to hear it. This was something she doubted anyone else had yet had the horror of doing, meeting Kira face to face _as_ Kira—with the exception of perhaps Naomi Misora, but given she had been missing for so long, it was hard to say.

The boy stopped in front of her. She would have placed him at around high school age, possibly a freshman in college. Judging by his clothes, he was probably from an at least relatively well to do family. Probably popular and well-liked, used to getting what he wanted when he asked for it. He was L's exact description of Kira, there was no denying that, and Alpha couldn't deny to herself that she would _never_ be that good at profiling criminals.

The two stood in silence for a moment—what _was_ there to say, really? How could someone start a conversation with Kira, or how could Kira start a conversation with someone who knew who he was? There was no doubt he would be looking for an opportunity to kill her, so she had to be on her guard. He had to know, since she had a Shinigami and therefore probably assumed that she also had a Death Note, that it would be near impossible for him to get her name.

In Alpha's ear, there came the crunch of an apple, and she gave an annoyed sigh. She looked over to see Akino holding up a small corner of a piece of paper in one hand, and his own Death Note was in the same hand as his apple.

"_Should I break the ice or do you want to?"_ he asked, obviously quite amused. Alpha held out her hand, looking annoyed, and Akino handed her the small piece of paper, which instantly became visible to the teen.

"I don't currently have my own Note with me," she informed him, holding out her hand, "Or even a piece of it. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about."

He took the piece of paper, and his eyes instantly fell on Akino. He was relatively nonplussed, especially in comparison to Alpha's initial reaction to seeing what Akino really was four years ago. Alpha gave a sigh. "This is Akino. The culprit behind this disaster. If he wasn't such a _smart ass_, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

Alpha watched him take a billfold from his pocket as she spoke and pull a small square of paper from a hidden pocket within it. "I don't tend to carry mine around, either." He held it out. Almost reluctantly, Alpha took it from him. She didn't have any idea of what to expect, so it wasn't a surprise that she found herself taking a step back when she saw the _thing_ hovering behind Kira—for that's all she could think of it as, a _thing_. Black hair that came to spikes that looked sharp enough to impale someone, the bulging eyes and flattened nose, a grin worthy of a Cheshire Cat, and that black, tattered tutu, all combining to give it the appearance of a demonic fairy of some sort.

Alpha gave a nervous laugh. "And to think I freaked when I first saw Akino…"

"_Well as far as Shinigami go, I'd say I'm pretty damn sexy._" Alpha gave an annoyed sigh and tossed Akino a _shut-up-you-_idiot glare. The Shinigami snickered, and Alpha rolled her eyes.

"All right, _egogami_." Akino glared, and she heard the Shinigami behind Light give a cackle. She turned back to face the pair. "You know who he is," she said to Light, nodding at the Shinigami beside her. "And you can call me Alpha. I don't give my real name out to many people, particularly not death note users. Particularly not Kira."

He nodded. "This is Ryuk," he said. "I'd say the same thing about not giving my real name out to other death note users, but my name is easy enough to find. Light Yagami."

_Yagami…?_ The name gave her a jolt, but she did her best not to show this outwardly. This… had been L's number one suspect since very shortly after he began investigating, the son of none other than Soichiro Yagami. Then L was right, this early on. This Light Yagami was just smart enough to make himself seem totally innocent. L knew who Kira was, but he had no proof.

No—thinking so much about it would give her away. She needed to get to business as quickly as possible. "Well?" she kept her eyes set on him, heart pounding. What if Akino was wrong and he _could_ see her real name? This could be her last day alive, then…. "You were the one who insisted on meeting with me. If it was to get me to join you, I can assure you that I'd be a useless ally even if I _did_ support what you're doing. My death note isn't even in this country at the moment."

"What were you writing in before, then?" Alpha blinked. "You put it in that bag before you stood up."

"Ah, that." She flipped open her messenger bag and dug through it among the various bars of chocolate and apples for her notebook. Holding up the spiral notebook, added pages sticking out of it haphazardly, she continued, "It's… my journal, more or less. That's all. I've had it for quite awhile. Definitely not a death note."

"Then where is it?"

"I could tell you," she said slowly, "but I don't think I'm going to. Whenever I go to get it, it'll only be to forfeit it."

Light's disposition remained perfectly calm as he said, "What if I have your name?"

"Then I would probably be forced to give in to you," Alpha said, "but I know you're bluffing."

"Are you sure enough of that to take the risk?"

Frowning, Alpha looked up at the grinning monstrosity hovering behind Light. It was a stretch, but it could work. "Based on my experience with Shinigami… you're just in this for entertainment, right?"

"_Yep, that's it._"

Alpha nodded. "Does he know my name?"

"_I've never heard him mention it._"

Alpha shrugged and looked back at Light. "That's good enough for me. I know that Shinigami can't venture far away from the person in possession of their death note. For short periods of time, yes, but I also know how well my identity is protected. If you do know it, go ahead and kill me. I'm not joining your side." Her heart was pounding. If he _did_ have her name, she was as good as dead.

"Fair enough. If what you're saying is true, you don't have your death note anyway." Alpha shook her head. "You're not exactly a threat, then."

"The only reason I'm even alive is because I haven't told him where his other death note is," Alpha said, nodding at Akino. "I tell him, he'll probably kill it and go get it so he can go home."

Interestingly, Ryuk cackled at this. Alpha glanced at Akino to see him glaring at his fellow Shinigami and frowned. Addressing this now probably wouldn't be the greatest idea—Akino probably wouldn't acknowledge it anyway, but it would be worth pestering him about later. Even if the reason wasn't his death note, it didn't seem likely he would kill her now if he hadn't already. She turned her attention back to Light. "Was that all, then?"

Light nodded. "For now, yes."

"All right. I suppose you can just send Ryuk to track down Akino if you need anything else." She laughed. "Nothing like using gods of death as secretaries. Eh, egogami?" She attempted to elbow Akino, but he was a few seconds too fast for her—he was already translucent, so her elbow just went through his left side. She looked over to glare at him and noticed he was still looking at Ryuk warily. Ryuk kept up his Cheshire grin—Alpha somehow doubted his expression was very changeable. She shook her head. "I have to be off, anyway. Got a few things I need to pick up at the grocery store."

* * *

Alpha entered the hotel room as the sky outside was darkening. The investigation team all glanced up as she entered and tread across the floor to set the bag down on a coffee table—fitting, since the majority of the contents in the bag was indeed a gratuitous amount of coffee.

"Took you long enough." Alpha glanced down at Aizawa, eyebrows raised slightly. "How long does it take to buy coffee?"

"I had to walk." This was a bit of a lie—it wasn't as though she couldn't have flagged down a taxi on the way there, but she wasn't fond of public transportation, honestly preferred walking most of the time. "Besides, I don't see any of you offering to go out and get any." She took a seat at the opposite end of his sofa and slid her messenger bag strap off of her shoulder. "Find out anything important while I was gone?"

A combination of somewhat exasperated sighs and glances met her in response, which she supposed she should take as a definitive "no." She sighed herself and picked up a stack of papers from the table. Online news articles, mostly obituaries, detailing Kira's latest victims. Kira was right under their noses, connected to them through close ties of family, and was leaving absolutely no tracks. If she had brought a recorder with her today, just a small mic that she could have hidden in her pocket, they would have had as good as a confession from Kira himself. Asking to meet him again without reason would no doubt seem suspicious. Just another example of her inferiority to L—Kira had no way of knowing who she was, that she was working alongside L to catch him, and yet she hadn't taken advantage of the situation, had been too busy panicking about their little meeting to be thinking straight. In the same situation, L would have caught him. The damned llama would have hidden a bug somewhere and gotten him to say straight out who he was.

Alpha gave a slight grimace. The past weeks had so far been nothing but a huge mess. Nothing about Kira had been discovered; Mello believed she was dead; the whole investigation team was looking at her as a nuisance; and in her one chance to prove her worth, she had let Kira slip through her fingers. Perhaps, she thought, glancing off to the side at Akino, it was for the better that she hadn't recorded their conversation. Would they have even believed a word of it? Their discussions of notebooks and gods of death would have seemed especially mad. L would have remembered the name Akino from B's mutterings back at the orphanage, would have been the only one to know that something strange was going on.

Perhaps an awful lot of complication could be avoided if she showed them Akino. If they knew of the existence of Shinigami, then they would at the very least have a better chance at finding Kira. There was the trouble of getting Akino to agree to this, of course, not to mention the fact that they could use it as incentive to suspect her. It would be better if none of them ever had to know anything about Shinigami; it certainly wasn't something that Alpha had ever wanted to learn about, and now she was stuck with a rather moody one hovering next to her, back and forth across the room. He had been moody since the meeting with Kira, since that Ryuk character had laughed at her claims that Akino was only keeping her alive until she returned his other death note. He really _was_ quite the egogami, upset over an old friend laughing about his inclination to kill the master of his death note.

Hours that felt like days had passed before most of the investigation team gave in and fell asleep, and Alpha headed off to crash in the bedroom of the suite not long thereafter. Beaten combat boots on the floor next to the large bed, eyes closed and her notebook beneath her pillow, it wasn't long before her relaxation was interrupted by several round, heavy somethings falling on her abdomen. Her eyes snapped open as she looked at her stomach—the majority of the bag of apples she had earlier purchased was there, and Akino hovered over the other side of the bed, arms crossed and looking rather indignant. The bag they had been in was clutched in one hand.

"What the _hell_?" she demanded, sitting up and glaring back at him—a few apples fell to the floor. "What was that for?

"_Trying to feed me pears now?_"

"Pears—?" She looked down at the apples and a hand came to her face. "There weren't many red apples left so I had to get mostly green!" She shook her head. "They were labeled in the store as Granny Smiths. Do you pay attention to _anything_?"

His one eyebrow lowered. "_Apples aren't green_," he insisted, though he sounded a bit more uncertain now. "_They're red_."

"There're also yellow ones. And _green_ ones, and you've just dumped a whole bag of those on me. Pears and apples don't look alike anyway!" She picked one up and shoved it in his face. "Try it."

"_You're trying to trick me. They could be a different kind of pear._"

"Have you been living under a rock your entire life?" Alpha asked, slightly dumbfounded.

"_Yeah, and it was called The Wammy House. And they only ever had red apples._" Alpha threw the apple at him—he hadn't anticipated the attack and it hit him on the skeletal side of his face rather hard. He glared in response. "_And living with B in Las Angeles wasn't much better._"

"Just. Try. One." She said through her teeth, picking up another and shoving it in his face. Grumbling, the Shinigami snatched it away, held it slightly away from him and gave it a rather suspicious look. "And stop complaining. Those're more expensive than the red, I'm not having them go to waste. Be glad I bought them at all." He took a bite of the apple, and his suspicious expression changed to one of slight confusion.

"_It __**is**__ an apple…_" He took another bite. "_Not bad, either. I might like these better than the red ones._"

"Yeah." Alpha brushed the rest of them off of her and the bed, onto the floor. "Now pick them up and find somewhere to put them before I get very angry."

"_Oooh, angry human. Shinigami __**scared**__._"

"Oh, shut up…" she grumbled, rolling onto her side as Akino flew over her to retrieve his apples. Alpha shut her eyes again. "Stupid egogami." She flinched as an apple hit her in the back of the head. "What was that Ryuk laughing about earlier anyway?" The rustling of the apple bag behind her stopped quite suddenly. "When I said you'd probably kill me as soon as I gave back your other death note."

"_That's not important,_" the echoic voice behind her said tonelessly.

"Evasive, are we?"

"_Not really,_" Akino said, "_but it would still do you some good to mind your own damn business. I might not kill you now, but there are seven other people you work with on a daily basis that I could._"

"And you'll probably keep using them as a threat any time I bring up a subject you don't want to talk about." Alpha rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes, looking over at him. Judging by the look she was receiving from the Shinigami, that was undoubtedly the case. "All right, then." She turned her gaze back to the ceiling. "I still say you're evasive," she said airily, closing her eyes again.

This earned her another apple to the head, and she decided to just keep her mouth shut and go to sleep that time, trying to tune out Akino's annoyed, echoing mumblings.

* * *

_I've gotten apple-to-the-headed before. It isn't exactly pleasant and I don't recommend it if you value your skull._

_So... perhaps there's more to my Shinigami than meets the eye? _

_-whistles innocently- -has developed Akino waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much-  
_


End file.
